Scribe/Job

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Work with us![edit]


About Scribe:

The Scribe project is a Wikimedia Foundation funded software and research project.

We are building a tool to support newcomer Wikipedia editors in creating new articles in under-resourced languages (e.g. Arabic, Hindi).

The project is open-source and will be integrated on low-resource Wikipedias so you will be working with us on the great cause of helping to spread free knowledge to the world.

Above is a preliminary mock of the Scribe interface, see also project page (link) and Scribe (prototype).


What you will be doing:

We are looking for a senior software engineer contractor to realize the Scribe project in a part-time position for 9 months starting on the 14th of October. You will work remotely with us.   We work on the intersection of software development and research. As you will join our very small team in this great adventure, we value enthusiasm, communication, and interest in the project itself. After the end of the project, Scribe will be maintained and scaled by volunteers from the Wikimedia community, so writing scalable, well-documented and modular code is an essential skill. More specifically, you will be responsible for:

  • Translate project requirements into documented architecture and implementation
  • Design UI/UX of the Scribe editing tool (for desktop and mobile web)
  • Design and build Scribe back-end services in a reproducible and scalable manner
  • Integrate the service in the MediaWiki environment
  • Handle the Infrastructure, Deployment, Scaling of the service
  • Full documentation of the service including contribution guidelines for volunteer developers from the Wikimedia community.

Required Skills and Experience:

  • 3+ years of experience in Full-stack development and community-focused application
  • Excellent knowledge of front end technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript (vanilla + 1 preferred framework of choice: jQuery/Angular/React, etc)
  • Experience with mobile web development
  • Excellent knowledge of one server side programming language + comfortable with PHP (the back end language of MediaWiki environment)
  • Experience with RESTful API services
  • Experience with packaging and hosting infrastructure stack: Docker/Kubernetes/AWS
  • Excellent communication skills and experience in working remotely
  • Proficient English speaker

Additionally, we’d love it if you have

  • Experience in Open Source development
  • Experience in dealing with large text files, web scraping and building and querying search engines is a big plus.
  • Willing to brainstorm and contribute to the research part of the project
  • An understanding of (accessible) design
  • Understanding of the challenges of localization especially for low-resource and RTL languages
  • Knowledge of an under-resourced language especially an RTL one (e.g. Arabic)
  • Amazing if you have contributed to Wikipedia before

What we offer

  • Paid open source contributions
  • Working on a fun project with a great cause
  • Possibility to contribute to the research side of the project and learn more skills about research in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning
  • High exposure of your work in Wikimedia & Research conferences


We are ..

Lucie and Hady, researchers in Computer Science. We are leading the Scribe project, so you will be part of our three-person team and able to influence the project itself.

Lucie worked at Wikimedia Germany previously. Hady holds a PhD. in Natural language processing and Machine Learning. Currently, he is working as a researcher in NaverLabs Europe.

We live in France and Germany/UK respectively, so we are used to working remotely and effective communication.

We will cover the research side of the project and work closely together with you to create our vision of a tool that will make creating high-quality Wikipedia articles easily accessible.

Interested?[edit]

Drop us an email (scribe.wikimedia[@]gmail.com) showing your interest in the project with your CV and portfolio attached.

We appreciate any kind of information in any form that shows your relevant experience, creativity and problem-solving skills.