Engineering Manager, Wikidata Platform
Job Description
About This Role
The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to lead the Wikidata Platform team—the group responsible for the structured data backbone of Wikimedia projects and a critical component of the global open knowledge ecosystem. In this role, you will guide the development and execution of the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS) and related platform services that enable tools, features, research, and community workflows across the Wikimedia ecosystem and beyond.
This position combines technical leadership, people management, and strategic planning. You'll support the delivery of scalable, reliable, and sustainable query infrastructure while fostering an inclusive engineering culture and partnering closely with product, SRE, and data teams. Working with your Product and Tech Lead counterparts, you'll help shape the future of Wikidata's query capabilities and ensure they meet the needs of millions of users and contributors worldwide.
Key Responsibilities
Team & Delivery Leadership
- Lead timely, high-quality engineering delivery for WDQS and related query platform services, including large-scale platform and data migrations involving multiple teams and stakeholders
- Ensure reliability, performance, and sustainability of existing and future query infrastructure through proactive monitoring and optimization
- Oversee planning activities including estimation, resource allocation, and work breakdown; balance roadmap work with maintenance and operational needs
- Triage incoming issues, bugs, and operational incidents with appropriate urgency and prioritization
- Address issues of diverse scope requiring evaluation of multiple factors, including Foundation priorities and current business trends
Technical & Platform Strategy
- Develop and drive long-term engineering strategy for WDQS, including lifecycle management, architectural tradeoffs, and future planning
- Partner with SRE and other Foundation teams to ensure operational excellence and alignment across the data ecosystem
- Safeguard privacy, security, and data integrity across query services and inform security best practices
- Provide technical input on system design, complexity, estimates, and feasibility to guide architectural decisions
People Management & Culture
- Hire, onboard, mentor, and support the professional growth and performance of engineers on the Wikidata Platform team
- Foster a collaborative, inclusive, and psychologically safe engineering culture
- Ensure healthy team processes and rituals, sustainable time management, and on-call practices
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Partner closely with Product and Tech Leads to define roadmaps, priorities, work scopes, and deliver impactful outcomes
- Manage dependencies proactively—staying aligned with teams you depend on and those depending on your deliverables
- Maintain strong, productive collaboration with Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE) product and engineering counterparts
- Communicate technical plans, risks, and progress clearly to internal teams, leadership, and external stakeholders
About You
This is a fully remote position requiring occasional travel. Your working hours must overlap with UTC+1 to UTC−5 time zones to accommodate team members and cross-functional partners. The team's core overlapping hours are 16:00–18:00 UTC. This role resides within the Wikidata Platform team and reports to the Director of Product.
Work Environment
- Location: Fully remote with occasional travel
- Team Structure: Lead a distributed engineering team focused on query infrastructure and data services
- Organization: Join the Wikimedia Foundation, a global nonprofit dedicated to free and open knowledge