Staff Software Engineer - Remote Role at Wikimedia

About the Role

Wikimedia is seeking a mission-driven Staff Software Engineer to join our Tools Platform team in a remote capacity. As a Staff Software Engineer remote, you will 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 critical individual contributor role sits at the intersection of platform software, developer experience, and production infrastructure.

What You'll Do

• Lead the design and implementation of software systems and workflows that tool developers depend on to build, deploy, operate, and sustain tools at scale.
• Shape how contributors interact with Toolforge end-to-end—reducing friction, improving reliability, and setting technical direction for a multi-year platform strategy.
• Provide Staff-level technical leadership for the software and product experience layer of Toolforge.
• Design and build the platform software and user-facing workflows used to create, deploy, debug, and maintain tools.
• Lead the redesign of Toolforge’s tool creation and maintenance UI.
• Define and implement golden paths for common workloads such as Bots, Web tools, and Data-processing tools.
• Partner closely with SREs to ensure platform software integrates cleanly with production infrastructure and operational practices.
• Act as a technical multiplier for the team by mentoring engineers, raising engineering standards, and guiding architectural decisions.

Requirements

• 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.

Nice to 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.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary range of $134,000 to $208,000 based on experience and location.
• Remote-first organization with staff members in over 40 countries.
• Inclusive and equitable workplace culture.
• Opportunities for professional growth and development.
• Comprehensive benefits package including health, wellness, and retirement plans.