What the work involves

This is applied-software data work, not software engineering. You perform genuine PyCharm workflows on your own Mac — setting up a virtual environment, stepping through a debugger session, running a refactor across a package, resolving an import that the interpreter can't see, configuring a run/test configuration — and capture them as high-resolution screenshots with accompanying written descriptions of intent, state, and outcome. Tasks are typically self-contained units: a stated goal, a sequence of captured steps inside the IDE, and a precise account of what each action changed. Some batches ask you to document the correct path; others ask you to document a realistic failure and the diagnosis that follows it.

The value comes from fidelity. Models struggle with IDE-specific knowledge — where a setting actually lives in the JetBrains preferences tree, what the inspector highlights versus what the interpreter rejects, how PyCharm's virtualenv handling differs from running `python -m venv` in a terminal. Screenshots have to show the real application in a real state, with menus, panels, and gutter markers legible at full resolution. That is why the megapixel floor exists and why it is enforced at screening.

What the platform screens for

  • Verifiable PyCharm depth. Expect follow-ups on debugger configuration, interpreter and virtual-environment management, refactoring tools, and the professional-versus-community feature split. Generic Python fluency will not carry the interview.
  • Actual access today. You are asked whether you can open PyCharm on a Mac right now. Intending to install it later is a failed screen.
  • Display capability. Your capture setup must meet Option A (a single display at or above the listed per-aspect-ratio thresholds — a MacBook Pro 14" or 16" built-in panel qualifies) or Option B (two 1920×1080+ monitors captured as one spanning image).
  • Documentation discipline. Clear, unambiguous step descriptions that a reviewer who wasn't watching can reconstruct.

Logistics

Fully remote and asynchronous, with work claimed from a queue rather than assigned on a schedule. Contributors commonly report 10–20 hours per week, though volume fluctuates by batch and is not guaranteed. The observed rate for this listing is $55–65/hr; bands on Mercor vary with assessed depth and are stated as observed, not promised. Engagements are contractor-based and paid per approved task or logged hour depending on the batch structure.