Director of Data
@ Wikimedia Foundation

Hybrid
$230,000
Hybrid
Full Time
Posted 22 days ago

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XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXX******* @wikimedia.org
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Job Details

About the Role

The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia and sister projects, is seeking a deeply technical, outcome-oriented Director of Data. In this role, you will lead data engineering, search, experimentation, and data-related site reliability engineering (SRE) initiatives while keeping a high technical standard for designing, building, operating, and evolving our data products in the open.

Responsibilities

  • Ship reliable, privacy-respecting data products and platforms.
  • Manage managers and principal ICs across multiple teams.
  • Set clear roadmaps and ensure production-readiness.
  • Provide strategic technical oversight and solve complex technical challenges.
  • Foster collaboration between technical teams and product management.

What We Expect

  • 8+ years of engineering leadership with 3+ years managing managers.
  • Experience shipping production data systems at internet scale.
  • Deep familiarity with open source tech stacks (Kubernetes, Kafka, Spark, Flink, Hadoop, Ceph, Airflow).
  • Ability to lead globally distributed teams in a remote-first environment.

Additional Desirable Qualifications

  • Open source community participation.
  • Familiarity with multiple languages.
  • Experience in volunteer community involvement.

About Wikimedia Foundation

Wikimedia Foundation operates Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects. With a mission for global knowledge sharing, we support a diverse, international team and a worldwide volunteer community. The organization is non-profit and focuses on transparency, privacy, and open collaboration.

Key skills/competency

  • Data Engineering
  • Search
  • Experimentation
  • Site Reliability Engineering
  • Technical Leadership
  • Production Systems
  • Event Pipelines
  • Open Source
  • Cloud Technologies
  • Team Management
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How to Get Hired at Wikimedia Foundation

🎯 Tips for Getting Hired

  • Research Wikimedia Foundation's culture: Review mission, values and global impact.
  • Customize your resume: Emphasize leadership in data engineering.
  • Show tangible results: Highlight production systems experience.
  • Prepare technical details: Review open source tech stacks and architectures.
  • Practice scenario questions: Focus on team management and strategic oversight.

📝 Interview Preparation Advice

Technical Preparation

Review Kubernetes and Kafka fundamentals.
Study data ingestion and pipeline architectures.
Familiarize with event-based system design.
Practice system scalability and SLO-setting.

Behavioral Questions

Describe a challenge in managing remote teams.
Explain balancing speed with production reliability.
Share an experience improving cross-functional collaboration.
Discuss decision-making in technical strategy.

Frequently Asked Questions