The document introduces mrjob, a Python library for writing and running MapReduce jobs on Hadoop. It allows users to test MapReduce jobs locally without installing Hadoop and to run jobs on Hadoop. An example word count MapReduce job is provided that demonstrates running locally versus on Hadoop. Instructions are given for an assignment to build a "People You Might Know" recommendation system as a multi-step MapReduce job in mrjob, including sample mapper and reducer code.