Lead Product Manager, Wikidata Platform

Summary

The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for a collaborative Lead Product Manager to lead the vision, strategy, and roadmap of the query platform for Wikidata, one of the world’s largest open linked databases. Wikidata facilitates much of the structure of Wikipedia content and contributor activities, making an impact on billions of users across 300+ languages. It is also a critical resource for libraries, universities, and other technology platforms. Our vision is a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all human knowledge. This includes access to data for editing workflow support, research, feature development, and advancing artificial intelligence responsibly.

As the Lead Product Manager for Wikidata Platform, you will shape the future of how users query and access Wikidata at scale. You will guide the short- and long-term roadmaps for Wikidata Platform to maintain stable, reliable, and sustainable data access.

The Lead Product Manager shares responsibility with the Engineering Manager and Tech Lead for the delivery, development, and operations of Wikidata platform products and services. This role is an individual contributor role, reporting to the Director of Product, Abstract Wikipedia, and Wikidata Platform. Wikidata application product strategy and development is primarily led and resourced by our affiliate organization, Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE), and so this role will also work closely with WMDE product management and engineering counterparts.

The Lead Product Manager will join the Product and Technology organization at Wikimedia, working alongside product teams building and operating features, products, platforms, and services used by hundreds of millions of people around the world. This is an opportunity to do good while improving and increasing the impact of the data platform for one of the top 15 websites in the world.

In this role, you will be instrumental in modernizing our data access infrastructure, improving self-service capabilities for our communities, and guiding Wikidata query services to meet growth in data and demand.

Our engineering environment includes open source applications developed in-house and off-the-shelf, with a wide variety of technologies and stack components, hosted primarily in collocated data centers. A highly successful candidate will also serve as a thought partner to the Vice President and Director of Product and to affiliate partners on strategic and tactical roadmap development.

This is a remote position; open to candidates residing in a range of different locations in the world. Some travel is required.

You are responsible for:

• Product lifecycle management of the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS) and related successor services
• Collaborating with technical stakeholders to discover user needs and translating them into prioritized system requirements based on goals and intended outcomes
• Developing and maintaining prioritized product roadmaps
• Tracking and communicating progress on product development goals, especially towards key results (in our OKR framework)
• Ensuring the privacy, security, and integrity of our data products
• Iterative and measurable progress towards longer-term goals
• Maintaining an understanding of current developments and innovations in structured knowledge representation technologies
• Persevering through setbacks to ensure team goals are met, or communicating when a pivot may be necessary.
• Developing an understanding of our movement and how it drives our work

Skills and Experience:

• 8+ years of product management experience with large-scale, API-driven data platform products with technical user bases
• Deep understanding of database and knowledge graph representation technologies and standards
• Experience navigating issues associated with privacy-sensitive data
• Past success in breaking down ambiguous projects into clear tasks
• Past success working with multiple stakeholder teams to deliver results through lateral influence and collaboration.

Qualities that are important to us:

• Strong collaborative problem-solving skills and ability to lead a product team effectively to deliver a project from idea to production
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, with an ability to clearly and proactively communicate plans and results to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Able to navigate and make decisions in circumstances with limited, incomplete, and conflicting information
• Curiosity and commitment to continuous learning
• Resilience and patience in a large and complex ecosystem of stakeholders
• An interest in and ability to work remotely with a distributed team across time zones.
• Emotional intelligence, kindness, and the ability to listen, understand, and respond to multiple perspectives.
• Commitment to the mission of the organization, our values, and guiding principles

Additionally, we’d love it if you have:

• Experience with open source, open data, or open knowledge communities
• Experience as a contributor on Wikipedia, Wikidata, or in Wikimedia project communities
• Experience delivering data platform capabilities that you can share with us during interviews
• Experience with data analysis to inform decisions and understand impact

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$124,463 to US$193,900 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 countries: 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 and Uruguay. Our non-US employees are hired through a local third party Employer of Record (EOR).

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 [email protected] or +1 (415) 839-6885.

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