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Senior Site Reliability Engineer, Infrastructure Foundations 🔥


Senior Site Reliability Engineer, Infrastructure Foundations

Summary

The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for a Senior Site Reliability Engineer to join our team, reporting to the Engineering Manager of the Infrastructure Foundations team. As the Site Reliability Engineer, you will be responsible for ensuring our global top-15 web site, our public facing services, and underlying infrastructure are healthy and developing further in support of Wikimedia’s mission.

We operate AS 14907 [1] out of multiple data centers in the US, Europe, and Asia, with a global backhaul network and an open peering policy. We apply software engineering practices in our operations, and we publish all of our documentation [2], code [3] and configuration [4] as open source.

We are a globally distributed and diverse team of engineers with a drive to explore, experiment and embrace new technologies. If you find what we do interesting, if you are up to the challenge of improving the reliability and delivery of one of the Internet’s top 15 websites, and you enjoy the idea of working in a remote-first role, we may just be the right place for you.

You are responsible for:

  • Performing day-to-day operational/DevOps tasks on Wikimedia’s public facing infrastructure (deployment, maintenance, configuration, troubleshooting)
  • Implementing and utilizing configuration management and deployment tools (Puppet, Kubernetes)
  • Leading continuous Improvement, by automating the installation, configuration and maintenance of services on our platform
  • Assisting in the architectural design of new services and making them operate at scale
  • Assisting in or leading incident response, diagnosis, and follow-up on system outages and alerts across Wikimedia’s production infrastructure
  • Share our values [5] and work in accordance with them

Skills and Experience:

  • 5+ years experience in an SRE/Operations/DevOps role as part of a team
  • Experience with shell and any scripting languages used in an SRE context (Python, Go, Bash, Ruby, etc., we use primarily Python), and configuration management tools (Puppet, Ansible, etc.)
  • Experience with package management on Linux systems (we use Debian)
  • Comfortable with Open Source configuration management and orchestration tools (Puppet, Ansible, Chef, SaltStack)
  • Good Linux system level skills 
  • History of automating tasks and processes, identifying process gaps, and finding automation opportunities
  • Strong English language skills and ability to work independently, as an effective part of a globally distributed team

Additionally, we’d love it if you have:

  • Experience with the use, maintenance and configuration of monitoring, metrics and logging infrastructure (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, Icinga/Nagios, etc.)
  • Experience with operating in public cloud infrastructures (e.g. GCP, AWS, Azure) and/or using container cluster management systems (hosted or on-prem Kubernetes)
  • Familiarity with basic TCP/IP and networking skills using either Linux or proprietary vendor equipment
  • Experience with virtualisation based on open source (KVM, Ganeti)
  • Experience with running authentication infrastructure (SSO)
  • Experience with patch management for a large fleet of Debian systems
  • Experience with linux kernel network tuning for high traffic loads
  • Developing/contributing to Free and Open Source software, or being part of an open-source community
  •  

The Wikimedia Foundation is... 

...the nonprofit organization that hosts and 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, free of interference. We host 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 financial support 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.

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 (415) 839-6885.

U.S. Benefits & Perks*

  • Fully paid medical, dental and vision coverage for employees and their eligible families (yes, fully paid premiums!)
  • The Wellness Program provides reimbursement for mind, body and soul activities such as fitness memberships, baby sitting, continuing education and much more
  • The 401(k) retirement plan offers matched contributions at 4% of annual salary
  • Flexible and generous time off - vacation, sick and volunteer days, plus 22 paid holidays - including the last week of the year.
  • Family friendly! 100% paid new parent leave for seven weeks plus an additional five weeks for pregnancy, flexible options to phase back in after leave, fully equipped lactation room.
  • For those emergency moments - long and short term disability, life insurance (2x salary) and an employee assistance program
  • Pre-tax savings plans for health care, child care, elder care, public transportation and parking expenses
  • Telecommuting and flexible work schedules available
  • Appropriate fuel for thinking and coding (aka, a pantry full of treats) and monthly massages to help staff relax
  • Paid travel to Wikimedia Foundation events all around the world!
  • Equipment including a laptop, monitor, plus a one-time stipend to cover any additional needs to make sure you have the best work experience
  • Great colleagues - diverse staff and contractors speaking dozens of languages from around the world, fantastic intellectual discourse, mission-driven and intensely passionate people

*Please note that for remote roles located outside of the U.S., we defer to our PEO to ensure alignment with local labor laws.

More information

Wikimedia Foundation [6]
Blog [7]
Wikimedia 2030 [8]
Wikimedia Medium Term Plan [9]
Our Commitment to Equity [10]
This is Wikimedia Foundation [11] 
Facts Matter [12]
Our Projects [13]
Our Tech Stack [14]


  1. https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/14907
  2. https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Network_design
  3. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/operations/software/homer
  4. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/operations/homer/public.git
  5. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Values
  6. https://wikimediafoundation.org/
  7. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/
  8. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
  9. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019
  10. https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/we-stand-for-racial-justice-49c31afbabca
  11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQzZI0l3IOw
  12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ4ba28-oGs
  13. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects
  14. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_servers#System_architecture

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