Research Scientist

• Contributing groundbreaking research with a particular focus on Wikipedia’s core content policies, the integrity of its knowledge and communities, and the resilience of its model.
• Discovering, reading, and evaluating existing research and press coverage on Wikipedia content and its core content policies
• Conducting flawless analyses and coordinating work with peers in Research, Communications, Legal, Trust and Safety, and Security in response to incidents
• Designing and executing thorough experiments to collect, clean, and analyze data, and/or to develop and evaluate machine learning models
• Discussing, documenting, and communicating the process and results of your research publicly
• Engaging with the global community of Wikimedia researchers to socialize the team’s work and raise awareness about relevant research questions
• Actively engaging in a collaborative, consensus-oriented environment as part of a globally-distributed team and organization
• Providing research consulting to the teams in the Wikimedia Foundation, affiliates, and the Wikimedia volunteers

Skills and experience:

• PhD degree in computer science, information science, statistics, or a related technical field
• Demonstrated ability to work on problems with both social and technical components in mixed method settings. Experience with knowledge integrity research is highly preferred.
• Proficiency in Python for data analysis, manipulation, and machine learning model development.
• Experience with Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing tools.
• Understanding of Large Language Models and their applications in research.
• Ability to assess the scientific rigor of empirical research publications studying online communities.
• Contributions to research communities, including a strong record of scholarly publications and experience serving on program committees for relevant conferences and journals. 
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English, including the ability to communicate complex technical issues to a cross-team and cross-functional audience

Additionally, we’d love it if you have:

• Deep knowledge of the Wikimedia ecosystem and how its projects operate
• Experience with volunteer or open source communities
• Experience with the Hadoop ecosystem, and analytical tools such as Hive or Spark.
• Experience working in large, matrixed organizations

Qualities that are important to us:

• Commitment to our mission, values, and  guiding principles
• Ability to effectively and responsibly communicate and actively listen 
• Ability to analyze tradeoffs between velocity and rigor of research projects 
• Self-motivated and proactive 
• Curiosity and commitment to learn
• Comfortable with working in the open and public exposure in multicultural and transparent environments
• Poised and effective in the face of changing requirements or senior leadership interactions.