The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for a Senior Data Scientist (Contract) to support the analytical components of a research initiative focused on understanding traffic patterns, user engagement, and content quality across Wikimedia projects. You will collaborate with teams across Product & Technology, Data Engineering, and Research & Decision Science.
What You'll Do
- Produce descriptive analyses of human traffic patterns, referrers, and indicators of traffic stability over time.
- Support preliminary assessments of how traffic sources relate to on-wiki engagement, such as the likelihood of exploring additional pages or initiating contributions.
- Assist in analyses of cases where sudden changes in visibility allow study of downstream impacts on editing activity or content quality.
- Create cleaned and joined datasets, summary tables, and Jupyter notebooks to support analyses.
- Produce time-series analyses for Traffic Health indicators and content reusers.
- Conduct natural experiment analyses, creating interpretable visuals and written summaries.
- Create method documentation describing assumptions, data limitations, and analytical decisions.
- Write short briefs or memos explaining key findings for internal stakeholders.
- Produce clear handover materials enabling reproducibility.
- Potentially create early prototype views for dashboards using Superset or Turnilo.
- Potentially draft early specifications for indicators or experimental frameworks.
What We're Looking For
- Advanced SQL skills for working with large-scale distributed datasets.
- Expertise in Python, specifically with pandas, numpy, statsmodels, scikit-learn, and Jupyter.
- Ability to work collaboratively in GitLab repositories.
- Experience with time-series modeling.
- Applied causal inference experience (e.g., Difference-in-Differences, event studies, lag analysis).
- Experience working with log-level or large behavioral datasets.
- Ability to evaluate data feasibility and design methodological approaches.
- Ability to interpret and communicate analytical uncertainty.
- Strong documentation practices and a reproducibility mindset.
- Ability to work independently in a fast-moving, ambiguous research environment.
- Strong communication skills for interacting with non-technical stakeholders.
- Ability to manage competing priorities across multiple research modules.
Nice to Have
- Knowledge of the Wikimedia movement and ecosystem.
Technical Stack
- SQL, Python, pandas, numpy, statsmodels, scikit-learn, Jupyter, GitLab
Team & Environment
You will collaborate with the Product & Technology department, Data Engineering, Research & Decision Science, and relevant program teams, reporting to the project’s Staff Data Scientist.
Benefits & Compensation
- Contract compensation of US$51/hour to US$80/hour for US applicants, adjusted for other countries.
Work Mode
This is a fully remote position. Applicants must be located in: Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States of America, or Uruguay.
The Wikimedia Foundation is an equal opportunity employer committed to maintaining an inclusive and equitable workplace. We encourage people with a diverse range of backgrounds to apply. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy or related medical conditions, parental status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, veteran status, disability status, genetic information, or other legally protected characteristics.
