Interim Engineering Manager (all genders)

Free knowledge leads to a fairer world. Wikipedia is the most important online knowledge collection of our time. The German Wikipedia alone records almost 1 billion page views per month for a total of 3 million articles. We - Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. - support the volunteers of Wikipedia and its sister projects, develop free software, such as Wikidata, and advocate for free access to knowledge, the opening of education and research, and more common good orientation in data policy.

For our Software & Development Department , based in Berlin, we are looking for an Interim Engineering Manager (all genders) to lead a rotating team of software engineers, 32-40 hours / week, starting as soon as possible.

As this position is an interim position, the contract is limited for 6 months.

This position is designed as a hybrid working model and you have to be based in Germany.

About the position & the team:
This position is primarily people management, focusing on our developers' personal and team growth, with an understanding of evaluating and suggesting improvements to engineering processes.
Wikimedia Deutschland's Software Development department includes seven different product teams working on Wikidata, Wikibase, Technical Wishes, and Fundraising Technology. Our tasks include live platform operations, backend maintenance and feature development, cloud services, testing procedures and analysis, API development, and systems maintenance to integrate various services with our Wikimedia websites (e.g., Wikidata.org, de.Wikipedia.org).

You will mentor and lead teams of software engineers who improve our products’ software, which includes developing new and maintaining existing features and infrastructure, as well as supporting the annual and strategic goals.

What you’ll be doing:
- Leading individual engineering teams, building features that support the development of one or more product teams, enabling our communities to achieve their visions.
- Support engineers, product managers, community communication & partnership managers, researchers, and designers in building features, products, and services used by hundreds of millions of people around the world.
- Collaborate with other engineering managers and functional team leads on development, technical guidance, and engineering processes.
- As the Interim Engineering Manager, you will mentor existing engineering teams while supporting the personal and professional growth of the engineers for a rotation of teams.
- Mentor and support the software engineering teams to maintain a high work and life quality.
- Support the teams to align development with the overall goals of the organisation.
- Represent team members within the organisation and publicly.
- Coordinate with other WMDE product teams and organisational departments.

What makes you right for this role:
- Experience as an inclusive team leader (team lead, senior developer, or manager) within an agile software development environment.
- Experience collaboratively managing and growing diverse and inclusive software development teams that work together in cross-functional team settings - with engineers, UX specialists, and product managers as strong collaborators.
- Experience managing a hybrid/remote software engineering team.
- Experience contributing to the enablement of your team members and overall team.
- Well-established interpersonal and external communication and collaboration skills.
- Proficient written and verbal communication skills in English.

Please submit a cover letter because we look forward to learning about your specific experiences and how those experiences match the position we seek to fill.

Interested?
Please send us your detailed application documents (Resume & Motivational Letter (yes, we read them)) via our job portal. We kindly ask you to refrain from application photos and information on date of birth, marital status and parents.

Wikimedia Germany is committed to equal opportunities and does not discriminate on the basis of, for example, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or belief, political or other convictions, gender, age, disability, or sexual identity. We would like to address you in the way which feels most comfortable for you so please share your preferred name and pronouns if you wish.