Senior Data Scientist, Safety & Security - Wikimedia Foundation

Summary

Wikipedia is a trusted source of knowledge the world over, read by over a billion people a month in over 300 languages. It’s offered for free and operated independently by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, powered mainly by small donations.

We are hiring a Senior Data Scientist to help guide Wikipedia’s anti-abuse and security strategy as a member of our Product Analytics team. In this role, you will inform our product development strategy by collaborating with product managers, engineers, and others to help our features and interventions make the impact they should.

As the Senior Data Scientist, Safety & Security, you will partner closely with the Product Safety and Integrity team, whose strategy is built around bringing cutting-edge AI and machine learning techniques to bear on difficult problems in the field of safety and security. You will amplify the impact of the safety and security roadmap through creative data analysis, identifying the right metrics for the job, and developing data strategies that advance our product decisions.

Example Projects

• Setting the strategy for how we measure the success of efforts to detect bots and inauthentic account activity (sockpuppetry).
• Providing analysis to inform the development of new heuristics and approaches to detect potentially abusive activity on the platform.
• Collaborating with research scientists and security engineers to develop and evaluate AI models to find malicious user-authored code.

Note: This role requires availability for critical meetings and synchronous collaboration between 13:00 and 19:00 UTC.

Responsibilities

• Serving as a strategic partner for product managers, engineers, designers, and other colleagues in product development teams.
• Proactively making recommendations on product direction and data strategy, surfacing insights, and interpreting results.
• Timely delivery of accurate quantitative data and insights to inform strategy, guide product decisions, and assess impact while balancing speed and rigor.
• Clearly communicating results and data-backed recommendations to cross-functional stakeholders to guide decision-making.
• Building and executing measurement strategy, evaluating experiments using Bayesian and Frequentist approaches, and performing quantitative research.
• Developing queries and code to work with large-scale internal and external data repositories using tools such as Apache Iceberg, Hive, Druid, Presto, and Spark.
• Building automated, self-service dashboards that track success and health metrics using tools such as DBT, Airflow, and Superset.
• Helping product team members instrument features, perform data quality assurance, and run A/B tests.
• Demonstrating sound judgment in prioritizing workload and selecting analytical methods.

Requirements

• Experience with experimental design and statistics or machine learning methods.
• Experience using AI coding assistants for data analysis and technical tasks.
• Fluency in R or Python, along with standard version control and command-line tools for data analysis, statistical modeling, simulation, visualization, and reporting.
• Fluency in SQL and working with large-scale data environments (e.g., Hive, Presto, Druid, Spark).
• Experience collaborating with product development teams in a fast-paced environment to test, analyze, and evaluate user-facing features.

Important Qualities

• Ability to explain data and insights clearly to non-specialist audiences.
• Curiosity, critical thinking, and a continuous learning mindset.
• Empathy towards and commitment to work with Wikimedia volunteer communities, along with discretion in handling sensitive data.
• Commitment to the mission, values, and guiding principles of the Wikimedia Foundation.
• Self-motivation and the ability to navigate ambiguity and complexity.

Nice to Have

• Prior experience in trust & safety, information security, privacy, or fraud/anti-abuse.
• Exposure to ethical data management and privacy practices.
• Contributions to Wikimedia projects or experience working in open-source communities.
• Experience with Superset, Growthbook, or other open-source testing and visualization tools.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

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

Wikimedia Foundation is a remote-first organization with team members across 40+ countries. For candidates based in the United States, the anticipated base salary range is $109,563 - $173,129 USD (adjusted by cost of living and location). For international hires, compensation is adjusted to the local market and hired via Employer of Record (EOR).