Senior Software Engineer (all genders) - Wikibase Suite Full-time

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 110,000 members and 180 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 3 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.

For our Software Engineering Team, based in Berlin, we are looking for a permanent Senior Software Engineer (all genders) – Wikibase Suite, full-time or part-time (30-40 hours / week), starting 01.10.2025 or sooner

This position is designed as a hybrid working model with quarterly presence in our Berlin office.

About the position & the team:

You’ll be part of a cross-functional, agile team (including engineers, PM, EM, UX Research and a Developer Advocate) building and maintaining a flexible, user-centered software stack that enables institutions, communities, and individuals to manage structured, linked open data. The goal of Wikibase Suite is to give more people access to and control over their knowledge infrastructure — and you’ll play a key role in making that possible.

Knowledge and experience in these technologies is not a requirement. We believe they all can be learned on the job and WMDE, your team, and your line manager will support you in this learning. We list only a few of them here.

The tech stack we are currently working with:

• Object-oriented PHP
• Docker and Docker Compose
• Github and Github Actions
• TypeScript and WebDriver.io
• Bash and Python scripting
• RDF and SPARQL
• MediaWiki and its ecosystem, specifically Wikibase Suite

Please check out our Github project and task management boards to learn more about how we work!

What you’ll be doing:

• Participate in all stages of software development — from research, design and code to architectural reviews — and provide constructive feedback throughout.
• Be responsible for all stages of the engineering work: identifying and making technical issues visible, considering different approaches and selecting the most appropriate solution together with the team, as well as outlining the required steps and implementing them.
• Being unafraid of taking on mentorship in the team and fostering a collective, pragmatic and engaged style of collaboration
• Contribute to shaping and supporting the team’s technical direction.
• Understand and discuss mid- and long-term implications of architectural resolutions and be able to communicate the impact of engineering decisions on our products to internal and external stakeholders.
• Stay aligned with the technical aspects of the product roadmap and the team’s strategic goals.
• Work with managers, technical leads, user researchers and developer advocates to ensure engineering effort is focused on the most impactful areas.
• Support the professional growth of other engineers together with engineering managers and technical leads.
• Engage in team processes and agile practices.
• Collaborate with other engineers in the Linked Open Data sphere within Wikimedia Deutschland.

What makes you right for this role:

• You are an engineer who is passionate and cares about software and who brings a senior mindset with several years of experience in software engineering.
• You have some experience mentoring and coaching other software engineers.
• You can initiate and drive changes in the team and in our software and engage others with your ideas.
• Your background is not important as long as you have a solid understanding and experience with Software Engineering and DevOps.
• You like being in a cross-functional 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 tests.
• You can recognize legacy code and know how to effectively deal with it.
• You want to keep learning and developing yourself and therefore you are open to new ideas and you are not afraid of making mistakes.
• You are eager to be part of discussions with UX Research and Developer Advocate to understand the user needs and make use of that knowledge to make informed technical decisions.
• You are able to communicate in English with professional proficiency and you like to participate in technical discussions.
• You are dedicated to the promotion of open source and open data.

Interested?

Please send us your detailed application documents (Resume & Motivational Letter (yes, we read them)) via our job portal. We kindly ask you to refrain from application photos and information on date of birth, marital status and parents.
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. We would like to address you in the way which feels most comfortable for you so please share your preferred name and pronouns if you wish.