Software Engineering Internship Program (2024)

Software Engineering Internship Program

Location: Remote (US)

Duration: 4 months (start in late February 2024)

Hours: 40 hrs/week paid experience

Appliation Deadline: All interested applicants must apply by November 30, 2023

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia – one of the most popular websites in the world, accessed by over 1.8 billion unique devices every month. It is the only non-profit in the top 50 websites, supported by a community of millions of individual donors around the world.

We are looking for graduates, non-graduates, or those seeking a career change who are interested in developing software engineering skills through an immersive “learn on the job” internship program. As an intern, you will be embedded into an engineering team within our Product and Technology departments and assigned a primary project with clear deliverables. Alongside your manager and dedicated mentor, you will learn the inner workings of our open source code that helps to create “a world in which everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge”.  You will work with software that serves over half a billion page views per day through Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects). The outcome of your work will impact how all people everywhere discover, share, and contribute to free knowledge. 

Additionally, you will have the opportunity to learn about various departments at the Foundation and connect with the wider volunteer movement and community. 

Applicants who identify from a group that is underrepresented in the global conversation of technology advancement are encouraged to apply. We’re also welcoming applicants from communities where access to free knowledge and Wikimedia projects are just emerging. 

PROGRAM DETAILS

Successful candidates must be able to commit to a four month, 40hr/week internship which will fall between late February to early June 2024. We will provide laptops and necessary software installed for the duration of the program. This role is 100% remote, and in some cases there may be potential opportunities to participate in in-person events to meet other fellow interns and teams. 

POTENTIAL TEAM OPPORTUNITIES

Wikimedia Cloud Services

Wikimedia Cloud Services is a flexible computing ecosystem built to empower technical contributions to the Wikimedia software world

Machine Learning Team

The Machine Learning Team is responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the foundation's machine learning infrastructure.

Content Transform Team

The Content Transform team is responsible for maintaining the wikitext parsing products and Maps. They deal with content formats and transformations between them.

Site Reliability, Service Operations Team

The Service Operations team takes care of public and “user-visible” services alongside the Technology and Product teams. This means, for example, our MediaWiki platform, but also the newer (micro)services that comprise our stack. It also includes miscellaneous services and components that we rely upon.

As we form our internship cohort, we are looking for candidates who possess:

• Basic experience with at least one back end or front end programming language (e.g PHP, Javascript) OR an interest in cybersecurity and/or privacy.
• Basic experience with databases.
• Basic experience with at least one scripting language.
• Ability to work independently and be resourceful in solving problems.
• Ability to stay accountable to deliverable requirements deadlines.

• Effective and inclusive communication skills with diverse cultural and language communities.
• Willingness to learn, a positive attitude, and empathy.
• A sense of curiosity and hunger to learn.
• The ability to flourish in a highly transparent and collaborative environment.
• A desire to make meaningful contributions to knowledge equity, free culture, and open access to global education.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of a