What the work actually involves

You work through queues of recordings — much of it audio captured from robots in real environments, paired with video of the same moment — and answer structured questions about each clip. Is there clipping? Where, and at what severity? Is that low-frequency noise a ground hum, HVAC rumble, or motor noise from the robot itself? Is speech intelligible over the noise floor, and if not, what dominates? You pick labels from a defined taxonomy, mark time ranges, and write short free-text notes when the categories don't cleanly fit.

The ear work is familiar to anyone who has done QC on tracked sessions or dialogue edits. What's different is the discipline: your job is to apply someone else's definitions consistently, not to apply your own taste. If the guideline says distortion below a stated threshold isn't reportable, you don't report it, even when it bothers you. Edge cases go in the notes field or to the project team — not into a unilateral judgment call that diverges from every other reviewer on the project.

What the screen looks for

  • Real audio background — studio, post, live sound, broadcast, field recording, or an audio engineering/music technology program. A degree is preferred, not required; demonstrable professional work substitutes.
  • Diagnostic vocabulary under pressure. Expect to be asked to distinguish clipping from soft saturation, hum from buzz, a dropout from a gate artifact, and to say what each sounds like and what causes it.
  • Guideline discipline. Screeners probe whether you'll follow a rubric you disagree with, and how you escalate rather than improvise.
  • Clear written English. Your annotation notes are read by people who did not hear the clip.

Logistics

Fully remote and asynchronous — work is pulled from a queue rather than scheduled in meetings. Volume fluctuates with project intake, so treat this as variable-hours contract work rather than a steady weekly load. You'll need your own reliable monitoring: decent closed-back or open-back headphones at minimum, a quiet listening space, and stable internet for streaming media. Rates in the $50–90/hr band have been observed on micro1 audio projects; actual offers vary by project and seniority and are never guaranteed.