Lead Product Manager, Reader Growth

Summary

The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for an enterprising lead product manager to help evolve the Wikipedia reading experience for a new generation of readers.  This role will be on the newly formed Reader Growth team in our Product and Technology department.  The Product and Technology department builds the wiki experiences that enable our communities to achieve our vision: a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. 

Wikipedia is one of the most popular media properties in the world, visited by over 1 billion people a month across over 300 different languages. The vast majority of these users – more than 99% – are logged-out readers on our mobile or desktop websites.  Their curiosity is why we’re here, and why thousands of volunteer editors keep building Wikipedia. 

New generations of internet users prefer to learn in new ways. The Reader Growth team will develop novel ways of engaging with Wikipedia content geared towards these new generations, building features that enable readers to browse and discover content more intuitively, contextualize and frame knowledge in novel ways, and engage with visual, audio, and other multimedia formats that align with modern preferences.  As the product manager on this cross-functional team, this role will be responsible for leading the team to ideate on new experiences, rigorously testing and iterating, and scaling features to millions of people across hundreds of languages. This is an opportunity to have a tremendous impact with one of the most beloved parts of the internet.

This role reports to the Group Product Manager, Readers.

Candidates must be available for critical meetings and synchronous work between 15:00 UTC and 18:00 UTC, and open to traveling internationally up to four times per year.

You are responsible for:

• Leading the development of modern and engaging Wikipedia learning experiences on both the desktop and mobile websites.
• Driving a cross-functional team of engineers, a designer, community specialist, and data analyst to build and deploy features and experiments.
• Working with the team to design lightweight experiments that can scale to fully deployed features.
• Applying the use of standardized measurement practices (such as A/B testing and user research) and also developing creative approaches to learn in our privacy-sensitive environment.
• Tracking and communicating progress, and maintaining planning artifacts such as roadmaps, specs and release plans.
• Working with the Communications, Marketing, and Legal functions to execute high-profile projects.
• Proactively conducting conversations with volunteer communities to brainstorm and gather feedback on projects and ideas, and collaboratively adapting plans when needed.
• Maintaining an understanding of current developments and innovations in knowledge seeking, AI, and industry best practices.
• Persevering through setbacks to ensure team goals are met, or communicating when a pivot may be necessary.
• Developing an understanding of the diversity of our global user base and how it drives our work

Skills and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience in a professional setting
• 8+ years of experience working with consumer-facing software development teams as a product manager, preferably in an agile software development environment
• Strong understanding of the current knowledge landscape, modern learning preferences, and content discovery trends 
• Past success building and iterating high-scale consumer-facing products on both desktop and mobile websites.
• Mastery of applying controlled experiments to make product decisions.
• Past success leading product initiatives that coordinate multiple teams/functions across an organization.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to interact effectively with all levels of management, staff, and communities
• Capable of managing a diverse range of responsibilities in a dynamic and results-oriented environment. Must be comfortable with evolving requirements and priorities.

Qualities that are important to us:

• Alignment with Wikimedia mission and values
• Resilience and patience in a large and complex ecosystem of stakeholders
• Be open, curious, and inquiring
• Share in a culture of constructive criticism and respect

Additionally, we’d love it if you have:

• Experience applying AI and machine learning in web products
• Experience building products for multiple languages and geographies.
• Experience working with large online communities 
• Experience working with a fully remote globally-distributed team.
• Technical data and analytics skills.
• Fluency in multiple spoken languages or dialects.
• Experience editing Wikipedia or with the Wikipedia, Wikidata, or Wikimedia Commons communities or other collaborative enterprises.
• Familiarity with MediaWiki.

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 recruiting@wikimedia.org or +1 (415) 839-6885.

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