The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for a mission-driven Staff Software Engineer to join the Tools Platform team and provide senior technical leadership for Toolforge, the platform enabling over 3,300 community-developed tools responsible for approximately 30% of all edits on Wikipedia and its sister projects. This role is central to enhancing developer workflows, lifecycle tooling, and the overall product experience for developers building at scale.
What You'll Do
- Providing Staff-level technical leadership for the software and product experience layer of Toolforge.
- Designing and building the platform software and user-facing workflows used to create, deploy, debug, and maintain tools.
- Leading the redesign of Toolforge’s tool creation and maintenance UI.
- Defining and implementing golden paths for common workloads such as Bots, Web tools and Data-processing tools.
- Partnering closely with SREs to ensure platform software integrates cleanly with production infrastructure and operational practices.
- Acting as a technical multiplier for the team by mentoring engineers, raising engineering standards, and guiding architectural decisions.
What We're Looking For
- Extensive experience as a senior or Staff-level software engineer working on platforms, developer tools, or infrastructure-adjacent systems.
- Strong architectural skills across APIs, backend services, and user-facing workflows.
- Experience designing and building developer platforms: build systems, deployment pipelines, lifecycle tooling, or similar.
- Ability to work effectively across roles—partnering with SREs, product, developer advocates, and volunteer contributors.
- Comfort operating in open, distributed, and asynchronous environments.
Nice to Have
- Experience contributing to or leading open-source projects.
- Familiarity with Toolforge, Wikimedia Cloud Services, or large-scale contributor platforms.
- A strong interest in improving developer experience and lowering barriers to entry for technical contributors.
Team & Environment
Join the Tools Platform team, a group dedicated to empowering volunteer developers across the Wikimedia ecosystem. The team operates in an open, distributed, and asynchronous environment, aligned with the Foundation’s mission of free knowledge for all.
Benefits & Compensation
- Remote-first organization with staff in 40+ countries
- Salaries set competitively, equitably, and aligned with values and culture
- Equal opportunity employer with commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity
- No discrimination based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy, parental status, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other protected characteristics
- Accommodations available for applicants with disabilities via [email protected] or +1 (415) 839-6885
Compensation ranges from US$134,000 to US$208,000 annually for US-based applicants, adjusted for country of hire outside the US based on location, skills, and experience. No consideration of salary history; compensation is based on skills, experience, and location.
Work Mode
Remote-first organization; applicants must be located within UTC-3 to UTC+3 time zones due to team coordination needs. Hiring is allowed 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, Wyoming. International hiring is permitted in: Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom. Non-US employees are hired via Employer of Record (EOR) and must have current work authorization.
The Wikimedia Foundation is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy, parental status, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other legally protected characteristics. It encourages diverse applicants and provides accommodations for disabilities upon request.
