Lead Product Manager, Reader Growth

Position Overview

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking an enterprising Lead Product Manager to help evolve the Wikipedia reading experience for a new generation of readers. This role is part of the newly formed Reader Growth team within the Product and Technology department. The Product and Technology department builds the wiki experiences that enable our communities to achieve our vision: a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

Wikipedia is one of the most popular media properties globally, with over 1 billion monthly visitors across more than 300 languages. The vast majority of these users (over 99%) are logged-out readers on our mobile or desktop websites. Their curiosity is the driving force behind our mission, and the reason thousands of volunteer editors continue to build Wikipedia.

New generations of internet users prefer new ways of learning. The Reader Growth team will develop novel methods for engaging with Wikipedia content, specifically geared towards these new generations. This includes building features that enable readers to:

• Browse and discover content more intuitively.
• Contextualize and frame knowledge in novel ways.
• Engage with visual, audio, and other multimedia formats aligned with modern preferences.

As the Product Manager on this cross-functional team, you will lead the team in ideating new experiences, rigorously testing and iterating, and scaling features to millions of people across hundreds of languages. This is a unique opportunity to make a significant impact on one of the most beloved platforms on the internet.

This role reports to the Group Product Manager, Readers.

Availability Requirements: Candidates must be available for critical meetings and synchronous work between 15:00 UTC and 18:00 UTC. International travel up to four times per year is also required.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of modern and engaging Wikipedia learning experiences on both desktop and mobile websites.
• Drive a cross-functional team of engineers, a designer, community specialist, and data analyst to build and deploy features and experiments.
• Collaborate with the team to design lightweight experiments that can scale to fully deployed features.
• Apply standardized measurement practices (e.g., A/B testing, user research) and develop creative approaches for learning within our privacy-sensitive environment.
• Track and communicate progress, and maintain planning artifacts such as roadmaps, specifications, and release plans.
• Work with Communications, Marketing, and Legal departments to execute high-profile projects.
• Proactively engage with volunteer communities to brainstorm and gather feedback on projects and ideas, and collaboratively adapt plans as needed.
• Maintain an understanding of current developments and innovations in knowledge seeking, AI, and industry best practices.
• Persevere through setbacks to ensure team goals are met, or communicate when a pivot is necessary.
• Develop a deep understanding of the diversity of our global user base and how it informs our work.

Skills and Experience

• Education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience in a professional setting.
• Experience: 8 years of professional experience, including at least 5 years as a product manager working with consumer-facing software development teams, preferably in an agile environment.
• Knowledge Landscape: Strong understanding of the current knowledge landscape, modern learning preferences, and content discovery trends.
• Product Development: Proven success building and iterating on high-scale consumer-facing products on both desktop and mobile websites.
• Experimentation: Mastery of applying controlled experiments to drive product decisions.
• Cross-functional Leadership: Demonstrated success leading product initiatives that coordinate multiple teams and functions across an organization.
• Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to interact effectively with all levels of management, staff, and communities.
• Adaptability: Capable of managing a diverse range of responsibilities.