Staff Software Engineer
Staff Software Engineer
PLEASE NOTE: We will only be considering hiring within UTC-3 to UTC+3 due to the geographical location of the team.
The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking an experienced and mission-driven Staff Software Engineer to join the Tools Platform team and provide senior technical leadership for Toolforge—the platform that powers over 3,300 community-built tools responsible for roughly 30% of all edits across Wikipedia and its sister projects.
This is a critical individual contributor role at the intersection of platform software, developer experience, and production infrastructure. You will lead the design and implementation of the software systems and workflows that tool developers depend on to build, deploy, operate, and sustain tools at scale.
Why this role matters
Community tool developers extend Wikimedia far beyond what staff teams alone can build. They automate moderation, support editors, process data, and enable entirely new workflows. Toolforge is their production platform.
Today, Toolforge has strong infrastructure foundations, and we're looking for Staff-level software engineers focused on developer workflows, lifecycle tooling, and product experience.
As a Staff Software Engineer, you will shape how contributors interact with Toolforge end-to-end—reducing friction, improving reliability, and setting technical direction for a multi-year platform strategy.
You’ll be responsible for:
- 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.
Bonus points if you 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.
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 $15. We also receive donations through institutional grants and gifts. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA.
As an equal opportunity employer, the Wikimedia Foundation values having a diverse workforce and continuously strives to maintain an inclusive and equitable workplace. We encourage people with a diverse range of backgrounds to apply. We do not discriminate against any person based upon their race, traits historically associated with race, religion, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy or related medical conditions, parental status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, or any other legally protected characteristics.
The Wikimedia Foundation is a remote-first organization with staff members including contractors based 40+ countries*. Salaries at the Wikimedia Foundation are set in a way that is competitive, equitable, and consistent with our values and culture. The anticipated annual pay range of this position for applicants based within the United States is US$[134,000] to US$[208,000] 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, France, 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.
More information
What does the Wikimedia Foundation do?
What makes Wikipedia different from social media platforms?