What the work actually involves

You log into a remote Ubuntu desktop — typically over noVNC or VNC — open KiCad, and work through a hardware-design task written by a task author: wire a schematic section in Eeschema, place footprints and route a multi-layer board in Pcbnew, resolve DRC violations, sometimes export Gerbers or touch the KiCad Python API. Your session is captured as a trajectory: keystrokes, mouse routing paths, footprint placement order, DRC runs. That recording is the product, so clean, deliberate execution matters more than raw speed — flailing through menus, undo storms, and abandoned routes all contaminate the demonstration.

The second half of the job is adversarial review. You are asked whether the task is solvable as written, and to find where it is not: an ambiguous electrical spec, a missing or wrong-pitch footprint, a clearance constraint that conflicts with the stated layer stackup, a symbol whose pin numbering doesn't match the datasheet. You then deliberately solve the same task by an alternative valid route — different layer assignment, different via strategy, different net ordering — to test whether the automated grader accepts correct-but-different work instead of only pattern-matching the reference solution. Bug reports and feedback are written, in English, and they need enough specificity that an engineer can reproduce the problem.

What the screen looks for

  • Hands-on KiCad, not adjacent EDA familiarity — the environments are KiCad-specific and version quirks come up
  • Real multi-layer routing experience: stackups, impedance-sensitive traces, ground pours, via management, differential pairs
  • DRC fluency — not just running it, but reading violations and knowing which are genuine versus artifacts of a loose rule set
  • Comfort in a Linux GUI over a laggy remote session, which changes how you route
  • Judgment about why a task is broken, expressed in writing

Logistics

Fully remote and asynchronous; tasks are claimed and completed on your own schedule. Pay is per task and the rate is not disclosed in the listing — treat any figure you hear as observed rather than promised. Budget around an hour per task as the working assumption, with the understanding that AHT is an average, not a cap. Five-week initial duration, immediate start, extension possible but not committed.