Lead Product Manager, Abstract Wikipedia

Position Overview

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking a collaborative Lead Product Manager to support our work on Abstract Wikipedia. This visionary project aims to increase access to encyclopedic knowledge by enabling more people to share more knowledge in more languages. Abstract Wikipedia explores the concept of writing Wikipedia articles once in an abstract form and then translating them into any language using a community-edited natural language system. The project's technical foundation is Wikifunctions, a multilingual, open-source catalog of code functions.

This is a unique opportunity to build the future of the Internet and expand access to free knowledge. The Lead Product Manager will be accountable for turning the vision of Abstract Wikipedia into tangible impact, working with an international team based in time zones UTC-4 to UTC+1.

Responsibilities

• Product Strategy & Roadmap:
  • Develop a roadmap that balances short-term execution with long-term strategic goals.
  • Build alignment between stakeholders and the community to define and execute the product vision and strategy.
  • Lead the prioritization of new products and services, as well as our product backlog.
• Product Lifecycle Management:
  • Own the end-to-end product lifecycle, from ideation to launch and iteration.
  • Deeply understand community needs, releasing features iteratively to deliver value and validate hypotheses.
• Process & Decision Making:
  • Establish and refine product development processes and best practices.
  • Bring structured thinking to product discovery, prioritization, and decision-making.
  • Communicate trade-offs to drive product decisions and move the team forward.
• Communication:
  • Communicate a clear product vision to internal and external audiences.
  • Use qualitative and quantitative methods to inform decisions, discover opportunities, and measure impact.

Skills and Experience

• Required:

  • Minimum 7 years of product management experience in software development.
  • A structured yet flexible approach to product development, capable of adapting methodologies.
  • Experience developing and refining product management frameworks, demonstrating a deep understanding of product strategy, execution, and decision-making.
  • Proven success in breaking down ambiguous projects into clear tasks, with a bias toward action.
  • Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly and proactively communicate plans and results to stakeholders and collaborators.
  • Excellent follow-up, attention to detail, time management, and project management skills.
  • Ability to interact effectively and develop productive working relationships with management, peers, and communities.
  • Interest in and ability to work remotely with a distributed team across time zones.
  • Comfortable with evolving requirements and priorities in a dynamic environment.

• Preferred:

  • Experience with natural language processing, computational linguistics, or knowledge management technologies.
  • Experience with multilingual products or platforms, including a good understanding of internationalization and localization.
  • Experience editing Wikimedia projects.

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 and tools to support them, and advocate for policies that support free knowledge.