Chief Technical Officer

This page is about the legacy CTO role. For the current CTO opening, see this page.

The Chief Technical Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation is tasked with the reliable and continued operation of Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia Foundation projects, with the support and development of Wikimedia's open source software stack including MediaWiki, and with developing technical strategy and technical programs to increase Wikimedia project reach, information quality, and volunteer participation. To this end, the CTO works with the Wikimedia technical staff, with contractors, and with volunteers, and supports the overall evolution and growth of Wikimedia's technology ecosystem.

Responsibilities

• Overall responsibility for all Wikimedia Foundation site, service, maintenance, upgrade, backup, disaster recovery, and technical support operations, including:
  • Operation of Wikipedia.org and the other Wikimedia Foundation projects, which together are the 5th most popular web property world-wide
  • Operation of other technical services such as mail and list servers, ticket response system, ancillary site functionality, etc.
  • Operation of office IT systems including computers, network, phone systems, etc.
  • Technical support for Wikimedia's fundraising activities, particularly its annual fundraising campaign
• Overall responsibility for all Wikimedia Foundation sponsored software development and maintenance work
• Lead the development of budgeting, vendor selection processes and purchase plans for investments in technical infrastructure
• Hire, manage and support technical staff and contractors
• Develop management structure and processes for the technical team to ensure continued growth and scalability
• Develop and manage internal relations and points of contact between technical team and other staff for shared projects
• Develop internship, partnership and contractor programs to identify talented new technical staff
• Oversee development of long-term strategies for both operations and software development
• Ensure that new software development and deployment happens according to committed timelines and deliverables
• Refine processes for continued volunteer involvement in both software and operations, and improve volunteer retention
• Oversee development of key performance metrics such as site availability and responsiveness, bug response time, code review response time, etc., and ensure consistent improvement along these metrics