Lead UX Designer - Platform Teams

Lead UX Designer - Platform Teams

Summary

The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization supporting Wikipedia and other Wiki projects. The Foundation operates one of the world’s top five websites and has global reach and impact. Technology and innovation are critical in our quest to support every human in freely sharing knowledge. 

The Product Design team at Wikimedia is seeking a Lead UX Designer for our platform teams. In this role, you will use your expertise in user experience and product development processes to lead initiatives focused on developer services and tools. This will require the ability to gain context and understanding of complex software concepts, facilitating their improvement through research and UX/UI enhancements.

You will be responsible for…

• Supporting design across our platform teams, including tools and processes tailored for developers, such as MediaWiki and Toolforge, among others.
• Reducing complexity to create simple, delightful experiences for our users.
• Creating prototypes and running experiments to iteratively test your hypotheses.
• Using and evolving our design system and guidelines, to create new features from ideas on paper to implementation.
• Applying accessibility standards and guidelines to your designs.
• Collaborating with product managers and engineers to create product plans and maintain product design processes.
• Distilling complex technical concepts into user-friendly and intuitive user flows and interfaces.

Skills and experience…. 

The right person is better than the right set of experiences. These are the traits we’ve identified that make great additions to our team so far.

• Can craft compelling stories that persuade team members and stakeholders to adopt their ideas.
• Solid experience using evaluative and generative research methods, to build a deeper understanding of audience behaviors.
• Strong communication and coordination skills to effectively contribute to multiple projects and engage with a wide variety of team members and stakeholders simultaneously. 
• A flexible problem solver that is able to adapt their processes to address a wide range of different approaches to achieve the best results.
• 8+ years of experience contributing on design teams.
• Bachelor's degree and/or Masters degree, or equivalent in related work experience. 
• Experience mentoring other designers on design while welcoming feedback from others.

Additionally, we’d love it if you have...

• Familiarity with software development workflows and tools
• Experience with HTML, CSS, or Javascript
• Experience designing and running experiments 
• Experience acting as a researcher, both in-person and with remote participants
• Have familiarity with Free Knowledge and/or Open Source communities
• Speak more than one of the nearly 300 languages of the users you’ll be designing for

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$124,913 to US$193,939 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 Arab Emirates, 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.

More information

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