Expert Audio Transcriber – Swahili

About the role

Perle is seeking native Swahili speakers with expert linguistic judgment to transcribe audio recordings into accurate, time‑aligned text. The work supports speech‑recognition and evaluation systems for leading AI labs and involves handling a variety of dialects, code‑switching, and real‑world acoustic conditions.

Key responsibilities

• Transcribe audio recordings following Perle’s project‑specific style guide.
• Apply conventions for speaker identification, overlapping speech, disfluencies, fillers, false starts, and non‑speech events such as laughter or background noise.
• Make orthographic decisions for dialectal, colloquial, and code‑switched speech.
• Flag ambiguous segments, uncertain speakers, and audio‑quality issues.
• Self‑review each submission against Perle’s quality standards before delivery.
• Collaborate with QA reviewers on edge cases, calibration sessions, and style‑guide updates.

Required profile

• Native fluency in Swahili with lifelong residence or deep immersion in an East African country.
• Mastery of standard Swahili orthography and ability to distinguish Tanzanian, Kenyan, and other regional varieties.
• Comfortable transcribing Swahili‑English code‑switching, including Sheng.
• At least two years of professional transcription, captioning, court reporting, broadcast, translation, or linguistic annotation experience.
• Demonstrated word‑level accuracy under deadline pressure.
• Reliable high‑speed internet, quality headphones, and a quiet workspace.
• Ability to commit to a defined weekly volume during active project phases.

Required skills

• Web‑based annotation platforms