Head of Design (m/w/d) Full-time

For our UX Team, based in Berlin, we are looking for a Head of Design (m/w/d) (permanent contract), full-time or part-time, as soon as possible.

About the position & the team:

You will be leading the diverse team of designers and researchers in charge of defining useful and usable experiences to the communities that make Wikidata, Wikibase, Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects possible.

The mission of the UX team is to deliver quality open source tools that empower users to contribute to the Wikimedia movement, regardless of their background or ability.

At Wikimedia Deutschland – with volunteers and institutions – we work towards a future in which people share the power to collect and organize the data that shapes humanity’s understanding of the world.

What you’ll be doing:

• You will support, invest in, and develop our team of UX designers and researchers, setting clear expectations via practices such as 1:1s, goal definition, and constant feedback on questions related to role profiles, responsibilities, as well as strategy & vision for the work of the team.
• You will represent the user-centered perspective in broader product strategy conversations, and advocate for the value of UX design and research as a discipline at a departmental and organizational level.
• Facilitate the implementation of UX processes in the product development lifecycle together with other team leads.
• Coordinate design resources and budgets across multiple teams, prioritizing transparency and a fair distribution of work.
• Enable the design team to deliver accessible and inclusive experiences for a diverse audience.
• Facilitate learning, and the professional development of the members of the UX team. This involves setting the bar for quality, challenging designers and researchers to adopt new best practices, and identifying opportunities that suit their strengths, and that would allow them to grow further in their specialization.
• Ensure the optimal flow of information across teams and organizations, defining appropriate communication channels and touchpoints, and ensuring the creation of high-quality, shared design and research resources

What we offer:

• A participative collaboration guided by our values: participation, diversity, free and open access, equity, sustainability and respectful collaboration
• Benefits: 30 vacation days (25 for working students) and additional time off on Dec. 24th and New Year’s Eve, public transport ticket, access to our company pension scheme allowance, continued salary in the event of sick children
• All overtime is recorded and converted into compensatory time off
• An office located in the center of Berlin and hybrid work options
• In-house training and continued professional development as well as free external life coaching (professional advice and coaching on job-related and private issues)

Learn more about our team by visiting our Wikimedia Tech News Blog .

What makes you right for this role:

• You are passionate and care about software. 
• You are able to communicate in English at a professional capacity
• Your background is not important as long as you have a solid understanding and experience with object oriented programming and basic experience with web development
• You like being in a team working towards a common goal, learning together, and supporting and lifting up your peers
• You have an eye for software design and quality and you understand the importance of automated tests
• You can recognize legacy code and know how to effectively deal with it
• You like to participate in technical discussions and are open to new ideas
• You are a fan of innovation and like to promote innovative approaches within the team
• You are not afraid of making mistakes and enjoy learning from them
• You want to keep learning and developing yourself

Interested?

Then apply now! Send us your detailed application documents (Resume & Motivational Letter (yes, we read them) via our job portal . Our HR team will be happy to answer your questions. We kindly ask you to refrain from application photos and information on date of birth, marital status and parents. We look forward to hearing from you!

Wikimedia Germany is committed to equal opportunities and does not discriminate on the basis of, for example, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or belief, political or other convictions, gender, age, disability or sexual identity or orientation.

*About Wikimedia Deutschland: *

At Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. we help create, collect and distribute free knowledge.

In 2004, volunteer Wikipedia activists founded the non-profit association Wikimedia Deutschland in Berlin, which now consists of over 100,000 members and 160 full-time staff.

Free knowledge leads to a fairer world. Wikipedia is the most important online knowledge collection of our time. The German Wikipedia alone records almost 1 billion page views per month for a total of 2.6 million articles. We – Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. – support the volunteers of Wikipedia and its sister projects, develop free software, such as Wikidata, and advocate for free access to knowledge, the opening of education and research, and more common good orientation in data policy.