Operations Engineer/Database Administrator

Description

 YOU ARE ...
... an experienced Database Administrator who would love to manage the world's free knowledge.
Wikipedia is currently a reader-centric site (ranked 5th worldwide in traffic, has about 480 million unique visitors/month, and a substantively active editing population of 100,000 individuals in a given month). That said, database changes need to be reflected with minimal latency, and there is significant emphasis on reliable storage, backups, query performance, publicly available data-sets, etc. We anticipate that our database and storage needs will grow as we continue to deploy new/improved functionality for participation (easier editing, improved media uploading, etc.).
You're excited about joining a small veteran operations team in a non-profit organization with a huge global impact. You enjoy working with open source solutions, solving complex problems autonomously, while flexibly working with your colleagues (including volunteers) who may be at the opposite site of the globe. You highly value job satisfaction and "doing the right thing").


JOB PURPOSE:
Manage the Wikimedia Foundation's data and storage infrastructure, and assist the engineering team with developing efficient storage software architectures.

REPORTS TO:
Director of Technical Operations

RESPONSIBILITIES:
You will be responsible for maintaining the Wikimedia Foundation's MySQL database systems as well as Wikimedia's other storage needs.

• Design, Build and tune MySQL database servers and migration of database data
• Database performance optimization
• Assisting engineering with efficient data storage architecture and implementation, SQL query optimization
• Setting up and monitoring backups of all data
• Maintenance of storage software used (e.g. Wikimedia's MySQL branch), problem identification and resolution
• Installation and maintenance of storage systems monitoring
• Establish database and storage capacity planning framework. Monitor and trend key metrics to identify potential performance problems that comes with the global growth of our on-line readership and new contents
• Response to system outages
• General infrastructure operations and system administration, including server installations and configuration management

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Advance level experience with MySQL database internals and administration, e.g., designing/implementing Ha, db sharing, tuning for performance and scalability, with at least 5 years of hands-on experience with MySQL administration
• Advance level knowledge of Linux internals and various file systems, with at least 5 years of experience with Linux system administration
• Deep knowledge of database storage concepts and working experience with storage systems, architectures and concepts
• You are able to work independently where needed, and can work remotely as part of a globally distributed team
• You are able to learn quickly. Relevant hands-on experience and eagerness to learn and try new concepts is more important than having certificates
• Experience with high traffic web site architectures and operations is a requirement
• Experience with software development and programming languages (e.g. C) is a plus
• Experience with configuration management software (e.g. Puppet) is a plus
• Experience contributing to open source projects is a major plus
• Understanding of Wikimedia and the free culture movement is a plus
• You must be comfortable in a highly collaborative, consensus-oriented environment
• You are a proficient English speaker
• Bachelor's degree in related field or equivalent experience

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Our commitment: Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. 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 fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, January 2012). Available in 282 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 150 staff members. Wikimedia works with local chapter organizations in 39 countries or regions to advance the mission of the Wikimedia movement.

•   http://wikimediafoundation.org
•   http://blog.wikimedia.org