Join Wikimedia (Senior LAMP Software Developer)

“Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s our commitment.

If you don’t know already, I left Automattic (WordPress) and have joined the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia) in February. Before this, I haven’t posted our regular jobs because I wasn’t too sure how relevant they were, and because I got burned by the Jobvite system spamming my twitter followers with jobs. (I apologize profusely!)

This is despite the fact that our infrastructure is PHP ([obviously][mediawiki]).

Until recently the Foundation has had lacked mostly Javascript and UI engineers and not senior-level PHP ones. But I guess when I joined all of the good PHP developers left! j/k :-D

Currently and in the coming months, we will have had three positions open up for a Senior Software full-stack LAMP/PHP engineer. If you want to work for the 5th most popular web property in the world with nearly half a billion monthly uniques (and probably the largest single-install open-source PHP project), you should really consider working here

Job description: Senior Software Developer at the Wikimedia Foundation

Be a part of a newly forming team that will be tasked to entice new authors to Wikipedia. You will create responsive UI-driven software components in a highly iterative environment to support user engagement experimental features for Wikimedia websites using JavaScript, CSS3, HTML5 and PHP.

Some of the projects you’ll work on:

  • Develop new experimental editor engagement features for Wikimedia sites.
  • Extend MediaWiki software to support new experimental features.
  • Participate in periodic technology meetings for design, development and testing of experimental features.
  • Scrum master for development team.

Required Qualifications

  • 5+ years of web development experience, including front-end development (JavaScript/jQuery/HTML5/CSS3), and server-side development using PHP/MySQL.
  • 5+ years experience with rapid iterative software development processes, ability to quickly grasp requirements, derive UI workflow and develop functionality.
  • Experience deploying code into high transaction volume production environments.
  • Experience with A/B testing, cross-browser testing, debugging.
  • Knowledge of Agile Methodologies such as Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP). ScrumMaster training preferred.
  • Familiarity with version control systems/continuous integration tools (we use Git/Gerrit/Jenkins).
  • Must be able to meet aggressive timelines, iterate rapidly, and switch rapidly across multiple projects.
  • Strong communication skills: Must be able to communicate clearly and effectively; have strong written and oral communication skills as well as be able to collaborate easily within a cross-functional team.
  • B.S. or M.S. Computer Science or related field preferred.

Extra Points if you have:

  • Experience with MediaWiki and other open source PHP-based content management systems
  • Experience in the Wikipedia community
  • Experience contributing to a major Open Source project
  • Understanding of free culture / free software /open source
  • Experience working with online volunteers.
  • Experience with wikis and participatory production environments.
  • Good sense of humor
  • Being creative, highly motivated, hard-working and ability to work effectively in multiple cultural contexts are great assets
  • Comfortable working in an open, highly collaborative, consensus-oriented environment

Please provide URLs to any existing open source software work you may have done (your own software or patches to other packages) if possible. We’d love to see what you can do!

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 482 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most popular web property worldwide. Available in more than 270 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 21 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. The Wikimedia Foundation was created in 2003 to manage the operation of Wikipedia and its sister projects. It currently employs 130 staff members. Wikimedia is supported by local chapter organizations in 38 countries or regions.

Apply by clicking on this link or contact me personally. :-)

Why working here is totally awesome

Wikimedia Foundation 90 second HR Video with Disclaimer Transcoded from original created and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by WMFer, Victorgrigas. (It’s probably a good thing this was filmed before I joined the Foundation. A version with me in it would have been rated R due to strong language. :-D )

You should seriously work here. :-)

Payvment looking for API ninjas

Are you an API coding ninja? Are you enamored with e-commerce and social networks? Have you contributed to or want to contribute to open source projects? And most of all, can you bring it? If so, we want to talk to you!

Payvment, Inc, a growing San Francisco venture-backed startup, is seeking Software Engineers that want to take traditional PHP to the next level by writing best-of-breed, test-driven, object-oriented code. An ideal candidate will challenge the status quo and manage risk proactively as necessary. This position is not remote and will require a high degree of team work and initiative.

Continue reading about this jobs highlights, perks, and requirements after the jump →

Cisco looking for PHP engineer

Kristen sent me this job posting:

Cisco has a small team that focuses on building a hosted social-networking/media platform (Cisco Eos) for media companies and the fans. They are looking for an experienced PHP developer to help lead the technology development of their advertising platform. This is a big opportunity with enormous reach and importance. The platform you help craft will be responsible for monetizing the future of content delivery — and more — for the biggest music artists, TV shows, movies and sports sites in the world. This a fun, start-up kind of mentality team with the backing of Cisco. This project is the direction that Cisco wants to move towards.

If you like to write software that scales, addresses atypical challenges, helps the world be more entertained, and is even revenue-producing, this is a dream job.

Continue reading responsibilities and requirements after the jump. →

bebo recruiting math

Bebo Logo
Image via Wikipedia

I got an e-mail from a recruiter at Bebo looking to hire me into the same position I had at Tagged. This caught my eye:

ABOUT BEBO: Bebo (www.bebo.com), Located in San Francisco; with over 40 million registered members viewing billions of pages monthly, it is the largest social networking site in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand, and the third largest behind MySpace and Facebook in the US. Officially launched in July 2005, received the 2006 Webby Award People’s Vote as the best social networking site in the world. Our people can boast demonstrated records of success in viral online marketing and social media, having come to us from such companies as Google, Ringo, Tickle, BirthdayAlarm, Friendster, Organic, Yahoo, and MTV. From its $15M initial round of funding back in early 2006 (from Benchmark Capital) Bebo has enjoyed positive cash flow since day one. Our recent merger with AOL will bring tremendous opportunity by combining Bebo’s fast growing user base with the social graph of AIM and other assets.

Third place in the U.S.—really?

Bebo traffic—Alexa
Facebook US rank: 3 MySpace US rank: 5 Tagged US rank: 108 Hi5 US rank: 288 Bebo US rank: 394 Friendster US rank: 534 Hmm, Tagged passed Bebo just after they got bought out by AOL for $850 million (and while I was working there) and Friendster right before I left. Given that Friendster passed on hiring me twice—that’s the sweet taste of satisfaction! :-D

Depending on the metric, you might make a case for it being #4, but to displace Tagged? Really? Not to mention, completely pissing on the hard work I did there. ;-) Besides this slight isn’t exactly going to make me jump ship from my new job back to my old one—just with a different color scheme.

Remembering bebo after the jump

Zynga hiring PHP developers

As someone who worked at Tagged, I can say that profit-sharing with game developers like Zynga have been instrumental to make our revenue numbers. If they make this much off us, I shudder to think how much they’re pulling in from open API networks like Facebook and MySpace.

(Not to mention way to many hours wasted on Mafia Wars and Poker. ;-) )

In any case, another PHP job posting…

Zynga is hiring after the jump

PHP Job: PHP ‘guru’ position in San Francisco

Senior Software Engineer (PHP/MYSQL)

Someone who has help build scalable web apps for sites with millions of users at established Web 2.0 company.

Seeking a self-directed senior software engineer with a desire to build scalable and interesting web applications. We desire someone who is comfortable writing efficient database schemas, clean and efficient back-end code, and has passionate opinions about user interface and interaction. Developer will be working to design and implement new features and improve the overall experience for millions of people. Developer will be part of a team that works on diverse, site-spanning projects involving community-facing tools, video, web services, security, anti-spam, user-to-user interaction, advertiser network, and more. Projects will be for both internal tools and highly-used public-facing products.

Qualifications and contact after the jump

PHP Engineering positions in Sunnyvale

I think this is different from the last one, since this one has three openings, instead of a single senior one.

  1. PHP developer, version 5, production environment, ideally with the ZEND Framework
  2. 6 years of overall PHP experience with a minimum of 3 years of development within a production environment/10 years of overall development experience
  3. Bachelors degree required
  4. Would be nice to have the following: Agile, MVC
  5. Needs to have the following: Creative, passionate, intuitive mindset
  6. Reason why the position is open: rapidly growing
  7. Location: Sunnyvale

Contact information: Carl Kenny, Yoh IT 408.654.9192 Extn:25 carl.kenny [at] yoh [dot] com

Senior Engineer in PHP (Sunnyvale)

A small, but promising company in Sunnyvale is seeking a Sr. Software Engineer with the following skills:

  • Recent deep experience with the LAMP stack, particularly object-oriented PHP5 and command line Linux skills.
  • Experience developing large, transactional web sites.
  • Any e-commerce experience is a big plus.

Projects that the candidate will be working on depending on their mix of skills are:

  • Web application development
  • Platform services and integration
  • Business process and workflow tools
  • Data analysis and reporting
  • Real-time optimization and heuristics
  • Release engineering and site operations

Contact Urmila Bhide, Talent Space, Inc., 408-330-1905

Senior software Engineer at CBS Interactive

Another PHP job forwarded to me from Linda Lee and Andrew Mager, this time from CBS Interactive (née CNET).

Company: CBS Interactive (formerly CNET networks) Title: Sr. Software Engineer Division: GameSpot.com, TV.com, MP3.com Location: San Francisco, CA

CBS Interactive is looking for Sr. Software Engineers in their Games, Entertainment and Lifestyles division—including GameSpot.com, TV.com, MP3.com and Chow.com. These engineers will play a key role within our development team. Responsibilities will extend to any of the applications associated with division’s initiatives. Real world experience and expertise with Linux, PHP, and MySQL are an absolute must, but a deep understanding of all web technologies from a technical and product perspective is also very important.

Please check out the job description here. You can apply online or email Linda directly at linda [dot] lee [at] cnetnetworks [dot] com.