Software Engineer III, Core Experiences

The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for two Software Engineer III’s to join the App Growth and Editing Engineering teams within the Core Experiences engineering group.

App Growth

The App Growth team has a clear and ambitious goal: make the apps the destination for knowledge lovers and grow our active readership. As a web full stack mid-career Software Engineer III supporting the Mobile Apps teams you will build features that create natural handoffs from the web to the app and landing users in exactly the right place — for example, prompting a reader to try a personalized reading list in the app, creating a game that is integrated within the apps as a webview; or when someone tries to edit there is a smooth hand off to the web editing experience.

This is not a native iOS or Android role. The role is focused on web-first product experiences, APIs, and platform integrations that can be reused across mobile web and native app surfaces; to help us scale features across platforms and create compelling features that deepen reader engagement and increase user retention.

To ensure there are enough opportunities to communicate, this role with the App Growth team needs at least four hours of your workday to occur between 14:00 UTC and 21:00 UTC.

Editing

On the Editing Team, we support new and experienced volunteers working in 300+ languages with the tools they need to keep Wikipedia accurate and up to date. The team's main area of focus is the flagship VisualEditor, our industry-leading rich-text editing platform which we have been extending to serve new use cases (e.g. DiscussionTools to support on-wiki communication) and unlock new capabilities that lower the barriers people encounter when contributing to Wikipedia. The latest capability being Edit Check, an open-ended system designed to surface actionable pieces of feedback and suggestions that help volunteers improve the quality and integrity of the information Wikipedia offers.

To ensure there are enough opportunities to communicate, this role with the Editing Team needs at least four hours of your workday to occur between 15:00 to 18:00 UTC.

You are responsible for:

• Delivery and enablement - Supports delivery of initiatives. Breaks down complex features into tasks, anticipates risks and collaborates to resolve blockers.
• Implementation - Can successfully build moderately complex features and components with minimal support and suggests areas for architectural improvements.
• Production support - Takes ownership of bug fixes and production problems and communicates in a clear and timely way about impact and resolution.
• Quality, testing and observability - Designs and improves features with observability and testing as a core consideration. Instruments features that enable deeper analysis by Product Analysts. Contributes to healthier testing and software quality practices.
• Cross-functional collaboration - Supports team alignment by asking clarifying questions, reinforcing agreements, and coordinating their work with cross-functional partners. Facilitates team ceremonies.
• Prioritisation - Contributes meaningfully to planning. Helps scope work. Identifies risks across multiple sprints. Adapts as priorities shift.
• Culture and standards - Participates in code reviews, design discussions, and technical planning; shares knowledge proactively; and helps improve team development workflows.
• Operational Awareness -Thinks through how code affects usage and trust. Contributes to onboarding, documentation, and hiring efforts at the team level.

Qualities that are important to us:

• Continuous Learning - You adapt to ambiguity with desire to learn and discover by self-directing your learning in depth and breadth. You encourage and support learning in others. You proactively share knowledge to make it easier for others to contribute.
• Autonomy - You work autonomously on most tasks, whilst timely checking in with teammates and sharing workload when blocked.You balance contributing and receiving support within the team.
• Feedback - You share and receive thoughtful, actionable feedback with peers — both constructive and positive.
• Collaboration - You enjoy working with others to solve problems and are open to feedback. You actively share knowledge and experience; you offer guidance to help others grow.
• Accountable - You own your work end-to-end and help establish a culture of responsibility and follow-through. Thinks through implications of technical decisions, and reflects on whether delivered solutions meet the intended goals.
• Clear communicator - You can explain your ideas simply and communicate in a timely manner. You adapt your communication to different audiences across engineering, product, and non-technical audiences in both synchronous and asynchronous channels.
• Outcome-oriented - You connect your technical work to user value, team goals, and product outcomes. You can make pragmatic tradeoffs when the ideal technical solution is not the right immediate product choice.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's + at least 2 years or equivalent professional web application experience.
• Experience working with backend languages like PHP or Python and/or experience with front end languages particularly with Javascript frameworks.
• A demonstrated ability to deliver testable, user-friendly features in a collaborative team environment.
• Experience building responsive or mobile-first web experiences.
• Experience converting design mockups into functional components.
• Experience building features with observability and testing in mind.
• Experience with incorporating performance and accessibility into features.
• Experience in writing well-documented and readable code.

Additionally, we would love it if you have:

• Experience working in a fully remote, internationally distributed teams or organizations team.
• Experience working with large, legacy codebases.
• A history of open source contributions
• Prior experience with MediaWiki or Wikimedia projects.
• Familiarity with Wikipedia / wikitext / markdown editing or content management systems (e.g., MediaWiki, Drupal, WordPress)
• Some experience with data science, machine learning, and/or AI (e.g., familiarity with prompt engineering, Jupyter notebooks experience, etc.)
• [For App Growth] Experience in launching and maintaining mobile applications, cross platform app frameworks, or building webview-wrapped experiences in native mobile apps.
• [For App Growth] Experience building mobile games or other interactive experiences.
• [For Editing] A strong aptitude in algorithms and data structures is essential!

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that 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 freely. We host Wikipedia and 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 donations 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.

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.

The Wikimedia Foundation is a remote-first organization with staff members including contractors based 40+ countries*. Salaries at the Wikimedia Foundation are set in a way that is competitive, equitable, and consistent with our values and culture. The anticipated annual pay range of this position for applicants based within the United States is US$92,267 to US$144,201 with multiple individualized factors, including cost of living in the location, being the determinants of the offered pay. For applicants located outside of the US, the pay range will be adjusted to the country of hire. We neither ask for nor take into consideration the salary history of applicants. The compensation for a successful applicant will be based on their skills, experience and location.

• Please note that we are currently able to hire in the following:

US States: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia*, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico*, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming (*US Territory or Federal District)

Countries: Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya*, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore*, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Our non-US employees are hired through a local third party Employer of Record (EOR) and must have current work authorization in their location. (*citizens/permanent residents only)

We periodically review this list to streamline to ensure alignment with our hiring requirements.

All applicants can reach out to their recruiter to understand more about the specific pay range for their location during the interview process.

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 +1 (415) 839-6885.