Wikimedia Foundation

Senior Site Reliability Engineer

Remote

Not SpecifiedCompensation
Senior (5 to 8 years)Experience Level
Full TimeJob Type
UnknownVisa
Non-Profit / Foundation, Internet / Web ServicesIndustries

Senior Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)

Employment Type: [Not Specified] Location Type: [Not Specified] Salary: [Not Specified]

Position Overview

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking a Senior Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) to join our Service Operations SRE team. This team is responsible for the infrastructure that powers wikipedia.org and other Wikimedia Foundation projects. Our SRE team is a distributed and diverse group of engineers passionate about exploring, experimenting, and adopting new technologies. The Service Operations SRE team specifically focuses on the application layer of our intricate infrastructure and developer-facing services.

Our technology stack includes MediaWiki instances running on bare metal, surrounding microservices deployed on our proprietary Kubernetes platform, an in-house developed deployment pipeline, and open-source collaboration software such as Gerrit, Gitlab, and Phabricator. We are strong proponents of automation, utilizing Python, Puppet, and Spicerack (https://github.com/wikimedia/operations-software-spicerack) for this purpose. We operate transparently, documenting our work on our internal task management system and our technical wiki (https://wikitech.wikimedia.org). We encourage you to explore our activities there!

As a senior engineer in the SRE Service Operations team, you will be instrumental in designing and managing the infrastructure and services that form the foundation of the Wikimedia Foundation’s projects. This includes, but is not limited to, Kubernetes clusters, application servers, associated datastores, and other developer-facing services. You will actively participate in 24/7 incident response and be part of an on-call rotation. This role necessitates close collaboration with other SRE team members to maintain and enhance our systems, as well as interaction with non-SRE teams such as Security, Release, and Software Engineering, all working together to advance our projects and technologies.

We utilize a wide array of technologies, and we value your experience even if it doesn't precisely match the keywords listed. If our work excites you and the prospect of working with a globally distributed team managing a Top-15 website appeals to you, we might be the perfect fit.

Responsibilities

  • Design, implement, and maintain public-facing infrastructure and services.
  • Utilize configuration management and deployment tools.
  • Perform architectural design and operation at scale.
  • Monitor systems and services, optimizing performance and resource utilization.
  • Proactively identify sources of instability in distributed systems and analyze complex system failures from a reliability and resilience perspective.
  • Execute common operating system-level tasks, including logging and backup/restore procedures.
  • Implement cookbooks/runbooks for routine maintenance actions.
  • Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation and escalations for production issue resolution.
  • Lead incident response efforts and post-incident reviews, contributing to failure analysis and implementing preventive measures.
  • Automate and streamline tasks, identifying and addressing process gaps.
  • Collaborate effectively with a global team that communicates asynchronously (remote work experience is not required; we will support your transition).
  • Mentor peers in your areas of technical and operational expertise.
  • Travel domestically or potentially internationally 2-3 times per year for team gatherings and conferences.

Skills and Experience

  • 5+ years of experience in an SRE, Operations, or DevOps role.
  • Experience operating highly available infrastructure.
  • Experience running applications and services at scale.
  • Experience implementing containerization solutions (Docker, Kubernetes).
  • Proficiency in shell scripting and a programming language commonly used in SRE/Operations engineering (e.g., Python, Go, Ruby).
  • Comfort with open-source configuration management and orchestration tools (e.g., Puppet, Ansible, Terraform).
  • Communicative technical English proficiency.

Additionally, we’d love it if you have:

  • Experience with package management for operating systems (e.g., Debian).
  • We are avid supporters (and users) of o

Skills

Kubernetes
Python
Puppet
Spicerack
Microservices
Infrastructure Design
Incident Response
On-Call Rotation
Monitoring and Automation

Wikimedia Foundation

Operates Wikipedia and free knowledge projects

About Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation operates Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects, aiming to create a world where everyone can freely access and share knowledge. It provides a platform for users to read, contribute, and share content, while also supporting the volunteer communities that help maintain these projects. The foundation is funded by donations from individuals and institutions, emphasizing its nonprofit status. Unlike many other organizations, it focuses on making knowledge accessible to all without charge, advocating for policies that support free knowledge initiatives. Its goal is to empower individuals to contribute to and benefit from a collective pool of knowledge.

San Francisco, CaliforniaHeadquarters
2003Year Founded
$145.9MTotal Funding
GRANTCompany Stage
Social Impact, EducationIndustries
501-1,000Employees

Benefits

Remote Work Options

Risks

Reliance on Nvidia's AI tech may affect Wikimedia's data processing autonomy.
DSA audit could reveal vulnerabilities requiring significant resources to address.
Decentralized platforms like Mastodon may divert users from Wikipedia.

Differentiation

Wikimedia Foundation operates the world's largest free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
It supports a diverse range of projects like Wiktionary and Wikisource.
The Foundation is a non-profit, relying on global donations for funding.

Upsides

Nvidia's NeMo Retriever tech reduced Wikipedia processing time from 30 days to 3 days.
Holistic AI's audit under the DSA enhances Wikimedia's platform safety and accountability.
Collaboration with Open Foundation West Africa combats misinformation during Ghana's elections.

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