Senior Software Engineer, MediaWiki Content Platform Team

Senior Software Engineer, MediaWiki Content Platform Team

Summary

The Wikimedia Foundation seeks a Senior Software Engineer to join our team, reporting to engineering management. This role involves developing software that enhances product user experiences within a fully remote environment. We prioritize teamwork and a consensus-oriented approach, offering the opportunity to write open source code for collaborative experiences supporting over half a billion daily page views, all while promoting work-life balance.

The Content Platform team focuses on supporting and evolving wikitext, Wikipedia's markup language. Our goal is to improve wikitext's ease of writing, parsing speed, and human error reduction. We also develop structured representations for editing and content analysis tools, and maintain web services for content rendering and transformation.

This is a mostly remote role. The preferred timezone for candidates is GMT-4 to GMT+2 to facilitate effective communication.

You are responsible for:

• Design and implement enhancements to Wikipedia's wikitext processing infrastructure, optimizing for user experience, performance, backward compatibility, and maintainability.
• Collaborate with engineers, product managers, designers, client teams, and community members to iterate on new features.
• Develop in PHP and JavaScript to support hundreds of global languages.
• Create and maintain internet APIs using server scripting languages.
• Instrument software components to monitor feature and quality metrics.
• Utilize caching and persistence technologies effectively.

Skills and experience:

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Proficiency with parser generators, interpreters, language runtimes, compilers, or guiding a language feature through its product lifecycle.
• Proven capability to lead complex technical projects from problem definition to delivery, including architectural decision-making and managing ambiguity.
• Experience in designing and maintaining reliable, high-performance software components for various teams, products, or large user bases.
• Strong engineering practices, including writing unit and integration tests, addressing security and code review feedback, and balancing architectural tradeoffs.
• Ability to collaborate across teams, resolve technical dependencies, and complete projects with minimal oversight.
• Experience mentoring engineers and enhancing team technical quality through code reviews, design discussions, and documentation.

Qualities that are important to us:

• Commitment to contributing to knowledge equity, free culture, and open access.
• Excellent communication skills in both synchronous and asynchronous environments.
• Self-motivated with the ability to manage ambiguity and complete projects independently.

Additionally, we'd love it if you have this:

• Familiarity with HTML5 specifications and DOM manipulation.
• Expertise in Node.js and associated technologies.
• Experience with Wikipedia, wikitext, markdown editing, or content management systems (e.g., MediaWiki, Drupal, WordPress). MediaWiki is an open source PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript web application powering Wikipedia.
• A history of open source contributions.
• Bachelor's, Master's, or Doctorate degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related STEM field (or equivalent certification).

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization behind Wikipedia and other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our mission is to enable every human to freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We host Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, develop software for accessing and contributing to Wikimedia content, support volunteer communities, and advocate for policies that foster free knowledge.

The Wikimedia Foundation is a charitable, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization based in San Francisco, California, USA. We are supported by millions of individual donations globally, alongside institutional grants and gifts.

As an equal opportunity employer, the Wikimedia Foundation is committed to a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace. We encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy, parental status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or any other legally protected characteristic.

The Wikimedia Foundation operates as a remote-first organization, with staff and contractors in over 40 countries. Salaries are competitive, equitable, and aligned with our values. The anticipated annual pay range for US-based applicants is US$116,633 to US$181,243, adjusted for location-specific cost of living. For non-US applicants, pay ranges are adjusted to the country of hire. We do not consider salary history; compensation is based on skills, experience, and location.

We are currently hiring in the following locations:

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, Wyoming (*US Territory or Federal District)

For US-based applicants, this position is part of the Communication Workers of America bargaining unit.

Countries:

• Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya*, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore*, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, 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)

This list is periodically reviewed to align with hiring requirements.

Applicants can contact their recruiter for specific pay range information during the interview process.

For disability accommodations during the application process, contact us at [email protected] or +1 (415) 839-6885.

More information

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