Job openings/Software Developer - Multimedia Usability

 YOU ARE ...

.. a passionate software engineer with well-rounded experience building usable, scalable and secure web applications, and a desire to contribute to a community-driven, mission-oriented open source project. Ideally, you already have some experience with MediaWiki or comparable open source web applications like Drupal or WordPress. The idea that your contributions to the MediaWiki codebase will lead to more contributions of freely licensed educational media to Wikimedia Commons resonates with your desire to achieve impact through your work. You're systematic and creative, and willing to put in extra hours when required to contribute to the project's success.

You're able to work very autonomously in a small team, and the idea of getting your feet wet in the MediaWiki community through a first time-bound project appeals to you.

Job Title

Software Developer [CLOSED]

Employment Duration

From October 2009 till July 31, 2010

Reports To

Program Manager

About the Multimedia Usability Project

The Multimedia Usability Project was realized by a grant from the Ford Foundation. The goal of this initiative is to make it easier to contribute to Wikimedia's multimedia repository, Wikimedia Commons. This includes improvements to the media upload interface, the workflow and documentation for choosing an appropriate license, the metadata interface, and the integration of Wikimedia Commons into Wikimedia's other projects, including Wikipedia.

More information: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Ford_Foundation_Grant_July_2009

Job Description

The core responsibility of this position is to improve the usability of the media uploading process to Wikimedia Commons, re-architect meta data, and create a tracking mechanism to measure impacts of media distributed from Commons. The successful candidate architects, develops, tests and deploys new features and improvements of the MediaWiki software for Wikimedia Commons by working closely with the interaction designer and peer developers of MediaWiki.

Responsibilities


 * Create implementation prototypes based on design concepts
 * Propose software design solutions and obtain consensus from senior and peer tech teams
 * Develop, test, and deploy new features and improvements to the MediaWiki core and to MediaWiki extensions
 * Collaborate in designing and implementing QA processes including multi-lingual and performance tests
 * Work closely with operations staff to ensure proper integration with testing and production systems

Required Qualifications


 * Computer Science degree or equivalent work experience
 * 5+ years experience as a software developer is required
 * Experience with PHP development is required
 * Extensive experience with AJAX/HTML/CSS is required
 * Experience with cross-browser compatibility testing is required
 * Experience with security implications of JavaScript/PHP software is required
 * Experience with LAMP is a major plus
 * Experience with testing and analyzing usability and accessibility is a major plus
 * Experience with MediaWiki is a major plus
 * An understanding of internationalizing and localizing software products a major plus
 * Any other free/open software development experience highly welcome
 * Comfortable in a highly collaborative, consensus-oriented environment
 * Experience with wikis and participatory production environments is a plus
 * Understanding of the free culture movement is a plus
 * The ideal candidate will be creative, highly motivated, and able to operate effectively in multiple cultural and language contexts.