Software Engineer III – Web Team at the Wikimedia Foundation

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.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Software Engineer III – Web Team

Location: Remote

Summary

• Web: We focus our efforts on the overall web user experience of the various Wikimedia projects, with a particular emphasis on Wikipedia on the desktop and mobile websites.
• We’re currently working on a refresh of the desktop web experience and are exploring a future focused on growing our platform capabilities and working with our communities to improve the flexibility and consistency of the user experience across the desktop and mobile web.

Responsibilities
You are responsible for:

• Improving the Wikipedia product experience
• Iterating on new products and features through collaboration with designers and product managers
• Writing multilingual and accessible JavaScript, CSS, and PHP
• Instrumenting components to monitor feature and quality characteristics
• Leveraging caching and persistence technologies
• Creating and maintaining internet APIs with server scripting languages

Skills and Experience

• 4+ years related professional experience in functional programming or OOP
• Experience building user-friendly features and software components with good performance
• Focused software engineering: you enjoy writing unit and integration tests, proactively addressing security and code review feedback, and thoughtfully balancing architectural tradeoffs

Qualities that are important to us:

• A desire to make meaningful contributions to knowledge equity, free culture, and open access
• An emphasis on communicating clearly in both synchronous and asynchronous channels

Additionally, we’d love it if you have:

• Fluency in one or more regional languages in Africa, Asia, or Latin America
• Practical skills with Vue.js or React
• Project work in data science, machine learning, AI (especially on natural language)
• A history of open source contribution
• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Doctorate Degree in Computer Science, Management information systems, or STEM field (or equivalent certification)
• Familiarity with Wikipedia / wikitext / markdown editing or content management systems (e.g., MediaWiki, Drupal, WordPress). We grow and care for MediaWiki and Wikimedia specific services. MediaWiki is an open source, PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript web application that powers Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation websites. It has been incrementally developed for over 15 years to become a richly featured wiki engine and the basis for hundreds of extensions and skins, and has a vibrant volunteer community. Our services utilize a number of technologies.
• Experience developing for markets in Africa, Asia, or Latin America.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply