Software Engineer (Community Tech) Full-time

The Community Tech Team at Wikimedia Foundation is looking for a Software Engineer to work with us to build features and tools requested by the Wikimedia community.

Each year, the Community Tech team runs a global survey in which our volunteer community proposes and votes on “wishes” for technical projects. These vary from small enhancements to MediaWiki, the software that powers Wikipedia, to entirely new tools or applications. Community Tech commits to addressing the top ten vote-getting proposals in each calendar year.

We are seeking a software engineer to join Community Tech to help us address these wishes and provide solutions to the community.

This is an ideal opportunity for a member of the community to leverage their skills and experience and help the Foundation support the community better. We are interested in supporting and growing a newer developer through mentorship, coaching, and increasing opportunities.

We use open source tools as much as possible, and always open source our own work (https://git.wikimedia.org). PHP and Javascript make up most of our code, but we value using the right tool for the job. Developers at the Foundation have autonomy and responsibility, and can have a large and immediate impact on the future of the site and the movement. Our world is vast and can be complicated, so we value communication, enthusiasm, and eagerness to learn as much as certificates or degrees.

Responsibilities

Architect, develop, test, and deploy new features, improvements and upgrades to various systems and tools used by the Wikimedia community
Partner with Foundation staff and volunteers on software design, development, testing and evaluation of potential technical solutions
Help identify and implement best practices in engineering processes across the team
Ensure positive and constructive discussions with the community and the Foundation
Work and communicate effectively within a small team distributed across multiple time zones

Requirements

Education and/or experience with Object-Oriented development using a scripting language (such as PHP, Python, Ruby, or JavaScript)
Interest in front-end web application development skills
Experience with collaborative open source communities
Openness to working with a diverse and geographically distributed team
Strong written communication skills as our collaboration largely happens online
Bachelor’s degree in CS or related field or the equivalent in work related experience

Nice to Haves

In addition to the basic skills needed for being successful, these skills could set you apart from the pack!

Experience with MediaWiki development or or as a contributor to Wikimedia projects
Experience with Test-Driven Development and agile methodologies
Any other free/open source software development experience is highly welcome
Understanding of the free culture movement
Experience with machine learning or AI technologies
Experience with online community moderation or anti-harassment tools

Show us your stuff!

If you have any existing open source software that you've developed (these could be your own software or patches to other packages), please share the URLs for the source. Links to GitHub, etc. are exceptionally useful. This is optional and your candidacy will not be negatively impacted if you don’t have public work to share.

The Wikimedia Foundation is...

...the nonprofit organization that hosts and operates Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge, and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge, free of interference. We host the Wikimedia projects, build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content, support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia possible, and advocate for policies that enable Wikimedia and free knowledge to thrive. The Wikimedia Foundation is a charitable, not-for-profit organization that relies on donations. We receive financial support from millions of individuals around the world, with an average donation of about $15. We also receive donations through institutional grants and gifts. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA.

The Wikimedia Foundation is an equal opportunity employer, and we encourage people with a diverse range of backgrounds to apply