Overview
The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for a creative, collaborative, forward-thinking Chief Product Officer to join our executive team. We’re looking for a leader who is driven by our mission, animated by results, informed by data, and passionate about superb user experiences. This may be you, if you have have a truly global worldview, uncompromising commitment to our values, and embrace transparency in your work and communications.
As Chief Product Officer, you will lead a nearly hundred person department that builds and supports products, features, and services used by more than one billion users per month from every part of the globe. As a member of the Foundation’s executive team you will be a critical voice representing our contributors, readers, and new users. Our vision is for “every human being to share in the sum of human knowledge”, and our product experience is essential to that vision.
As Chief Product Officer, we’d like you to do these things:
Lead
- Work with the Foundation’s executive team to think and act in service of the future of the Wikimedia vision, projects, contributors, and readers
- Serve as a compelling advocate for the Wikimedia movement, Foundation, and values to users, contributors, donors, and partners
- Develop and lead product strategy to support the Wikimedia projects, communities, and partners
Produce
- Deliver measurable user impact at global scale by working collaboratively and effectively across internal departments and external partners
- Develop, advance and deliver an effective product vision, including expanding product usership, contributor health and retention, brand awareness, and revenue growth
- Build products to grow and sustain our content-building communities while acquiring, delighting, and engaging readers
- Foster a well-defined theory of change with qualitative and quantitative metrics to track and communicate impact
Manage
- Build a sustainable system and culture for team members’ continued professional growth and advancement
- Manage, mentor, and recruit exceptional and diverse talent
- Build strong and effective teams, developing departmental succession planning across a broad range of disciplines (e.g., product management, design, engineering, data analysis)
- Manage competing priorities, complex stakeholder relationships, and finite resources in order to deliver measurable user impact at scale
Collaborate
- Build and strengthen relationships with the Wikimedia community to advance the mission of the Foundation
- Identify and grow product partnerships that support our movement’s aspirations
- Work with our communities to understand their needs and motivations
We’d like you to have this experience and these skills:
- 10+ years in strategic-level product development roles
- Proven record of leading high-impact global software product initiatives for millions of users with measurable success, across multilingual audiences, on time and budget
- Experience leading multidisciplinary product development teams, developing diverse talent pipelines, and creating systems for creative and sustainable internal workflows
- Proven skills with modern forms of adaptive product planning, customer discovery, product discovery, and product development processes to deliver software features that meet users’ needs
- Experience collaborating on the development of product roadmaps which feed into company strategy, including detailed technological implementations
- Significant experience navigating complex international organizations, movements, or networks
- A track record of building consensus among large, dispersed stakeholder groups in a highly collaborative, transparent environment
- Informed cultural sensitivities, intellectual curiosity, and a deep passion for the Wikimedia mission
- Experience with internet culture and policy issues, including: freedom of expression, open culture/free culture, the free and open source software movement, online surveillance, privacy and security
And it would be even more awesome if you had the following:
- The ability to work in a fast-moving, highly-diverse grassroots environment, while effectively prioritizing and leading a variety of activities
- Significant skilled personal use of creative, collaborative, and social platforms
- Experience working with nonprofit organizations is a plus
- Fluency or familiarity with languages in addition to English are a plus.
- Having lived or worked outside your country of origin is a plus
- Experience as a member of a volunteer community is a plus
About the Wikimedia Foundation:
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that supports and hosts Wikipedia and several other Wikimedia free knowledge sites. Every month, the Wikimedia sites are accessed by nearly 1.5 billion unique devices. Wikipedia consists of more than 40 million articles across hundreds of languages. Every month, more than 250,000 volunteer editors contribute to Wikipedia. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) non-profit that is funded primarily through donations and grants. It currently employs over 240 staff members.
At the Foundation, we build technology to help people everywhere access Wikipedia, across devices and in nearly 300 languages. We engineer privacy for our readers and editors so they can safely and securely explore Wikipedia. We create programs and initiatives to make Wikipedia freely available to more people in more parts of the world. We build new tools for the community of editors so they can continue to improve and grow Wikipedia. Roughly a quarter of our budget goes to supporting the community that make the site possible, including through grantmaking programs that enable volunteers and enrich the information on the sites.
The Wikimedia Foundation is an equal opportunity employer, and we encourage people with a diverse range of backgrounds to apply.
Benefits & Perks*:
- Fully paid medical, dental and vision coverage for employees and their eligible families (yes, fully paid premiums!)
- The Wellness Program provides reimbursement for mind, body and soul activities such as fitness memberships, massages, cooking classes and much more
- The 401(k) retirement plan offers matched contributions at 4% of annual salary
- Flexible and generous time off – vacation, sick and volunteer days, plus 19 paid holidays – including the last week of the year.
- Family friendly! 100% paid new parent leave for seven weeks plus an additional five weeks for pregnancy, flexible options to phase back in after leave, fully equipped lactation room
- For those emergency moments – long and short term disability, life insurance (2x salary) and an employee assistance program
- Pre-tax savings plans for health care, child care, elder care, public transportation and parking expenses
- Telecommuting and flexible work schedules available
- Appropriate fuel for thinking and coding (aka, a pantry full of treats) and monthly massages to help staff relax
- Great colleagues – diverse staff and contractors speaking dozens of languages from around the world, fantastic intellectual discourse, mission-driven and intensely passionate people
* for benefits eligible staff, benefits vary by location
More Information: