Staff Software Engineer, Trust and Safety Tools Full-time

STAFF SOFTWARE ENGINEER, TRUST AND SAFETY TOOLS

Summary

The Trust & Safety Engineering Team at Wikimedia Foundation is looking for Staff Software Engineers to help build features that protect our users’ privacy and safety on all of our Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia. This role is full-time, 100% remote, and global.

The T&S Engineering Team is a new, interdisciplinary product team developing tools that help our T&S staff and the volunteer admins they work with to enforce policy, procedure, and laws across our projects and communities. This includes some light data analysis tools and some enforcement tools.

The daily work will include contributing new patches or pull requests for existing features, generating requirements and prototypes for new features, estimating new work, collaborating with a designer, or helping a volunteer engineer get their code shaped up. The stakeholders will be Trust & Safety experts that cross disciplines from Legal to Security as well as all the users impacted by these topics.

Stopping harassment on our projects is a pillar of our Foundation’s strategy and planning for the future. This team will work alongside the Anti-Harassment Team, which has been around for a few years. This team will be focused on tools that help protect and empower the most vulnerable people in our communities. This is important, highly visible work.

Because of the sensitive nature of the tools we build, our work is highly collaborative and heavily tested. We interact with database administrators, security engineers, and other teams on a regular basis. We value communication, enthusiasm, and eagerness to learn as much as certificates or degrees.

We use open source tools as much as possible, and always open source our own work (check out our Github). 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.

Responsibilities

Develop, test, and deploy new features, improvements and upgrades to various systems and tools used by administrators and staff
Work with Foundation staff and volunteers on software design, development, testing and evaluation of potential technical solutions
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). Most of our work is in PHP and JavaScript
Interest in front-end web application development skills
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

Experience mentoring other developers
Experience with online community moderation or anti-harassment tools
Experience with unit testing and integration testing and agile methodologies
Experience with MediaWiki development or as a contributor to Wikimedia projects
Experience with machine learning or AI technologies
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©(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA.

As an equal opportunity employer, the Wikimedia Foundation values having a diverse workforce and continuously strives to maintain an inclusive and equitable workplace. We encourage people with a diverse range of backgrounds to apply. We do not discriminate against any person based upon their race, traits historically associated with race, religion, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy or related medical conditions, parental status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, or any other legally protected characteristics.

If you are a qualified applicant requiring assistance or an accommodation to complete any step of the application process due to a disability, you may contact us at recruiting@wikimedia.org or (415) 839-6885.

U.S. Benefits & Perks*

Fully paid medical, dental and vision coverage for employees and their eligible families (yes, fully paid premiums!)
The Wellness Program provides reimbursement for mind, body and soul activities such as fitness memberships, baby sitting, continuing education and much more
The 401(k) retirement plan offers matched contributions at 4% of annual salary
Flexible and generous time off – vacation, sick and volunteer days, plus 22 paid holidays – including the last week of the year.
Family friendly! 100% paid new parent leave for seven weeks plus an additional five weeks for pregnancy, flexible options to phase back in after leave, fully equipped lactation room.
For those emergency moments – long and short term disability, life insurance (2x salary) and an employee assistance program
Pre-tax savings plans for health care, child care, elder care, public transportation and parking expenses
Telecommuting and flexible work schedules available
Appropriate fuel for thinking and coding (aka, a pantry full of treats) and monthly massages to help staff relax
Paid travel to Wikimedia Foundation events all around the world!
Equipment including a laptop, monitor, plus a one-time stipend to cover any additional needs to make sure you have the best work experience
Great colleagues – diverse staff and contractors speaking dozens of languages from around the world, fantastic intellectual discourse, mission-driven and intensely passionate people *Please note that for remote roles located outside of the U.S., we defer to our PEO to ensure alignment with local labor laws.