Community Central:Hiring

Wikia is a consumer destination site where you can read, discuss, and share information and opinions on any topic and in any language. Wikia currently has over 800,000 pages of content in more than 70 languages. Wikia's investors include Amazon, Bessemer Venture Partners, Omidyar Network, and a select group of angel investors including Marc Andreessen, Josh Kopelman, Joichi Ito, Mitch Kapor, and Ron Conway.

Community Development Associate (San Mateo, CA)
Wikia, Inc., the leading provider of community resources for building free content, wants you! If you have online community experience and a passion for wikis, we're building a small agile team in San Mateo and looking for a fabulous Community Development Associate to join our team.

Responsibilities

 * Help new and existing communities grow by contributing content, offering advice to the wiki founder and welcoming new contributors.
 * Assisting users and responding to their questions via email, CSR ticketing systems, wiki talk pages and chat programs.
 * Helping users with editing their wikis (i.e. creating templates and tables, and setting up category structures).
 * Responding to requests for new wikis and creating them as needed.
 * Testing new features and creating corresponding help pages and tutorials.
 * Forwarding user comments, requests, and bug reports to the appropriate team.

Ideal Candidate

 * Has excellent writing skills and can communicate proactively with others in friendly and simple terms.
 * Enjoys multitasking and can meet several deadlines at once.
 * Has a passion for wikis and online communities.
 * Has experience with MediaWiki software and syntax.
 * Thrives in a fast paced environment.
 * Self-motivated with a demonstrated ability to work independently with attention to detail.
 * Experience managing online communities or supporting online customers and/or heavy participation in an existing wiki community.

Applying
This is a full time position located in San Mateo, CA. Relocation assistance is possible for the right candidate.

Please send a resume and intro email to hiring@wikia.com and include CDA in the subject line.

Entertainment Community Intern (Location is flexible)
Do you like to write? Are you addicted to editing wikis? Are you excited about new TV shows, movies, celebrities, cartoons and anime? Would you like real-world experience working for a company on the cutting edge of Web 2.0?

Wikia's Entertainment team is looking for an intern to work closely with members of Wikia's management team to create fabulous and well-organized entertainment content.

The Entertainment Community Intern is an unpaid position, though a stipend is available for the right candidate, and the position could lead to a more permanent role on the team.

We're looking for 10-25 hours/week from people who love writing and building wikis. Hours are flexible. Work from home -- or, if you're nearby, you can work from our offices in San Mateo.

Responsibilities
The position will involve working with the Community Development Manager to identify target content areas. We'll create new wikis, and help to improve existing ones.

For new wikis :


 * Creating the basic content pages and structure


 * Finding information on the internet, and using that info to write lots of pages

For existing wikis :


 * Identifying what's missing on the wiki, and figuring out how to help


 * Cleaning up content, organizing the main page, making things consistent


 * Restructuring content, making sure that the category structure makes sense


 * Upgrading help pages


 * Establishing a good relationship with the existing admins, and helping them create a thriving community on their wiki

Qualifications
Candidates should have a strong history of contributions on a wiki -- especially creating pages and copy-editing. Admin experience preferred, but not required.

Applying
Please send a resume and introduction letter to Danny Horn, at [mailto:danny@wikia.com danny@wikia.com].

Senior Product Manager/Product Manager (San Mateo, CA)
Wikia, Inc., the leading provider of community resources for building free content, wants you! If you're a great Product Manager then come work on The Next Big Thing for vibrant on-line communities. We're building a small agile team in San Mateo to work on our core platform, user tools, and new customer-facing web applications.

Responsibilities

 * Drive innovation, planning and execution of new product features and business concepts.
 * Analyze users and competitors to determine the right feature set to help Wikia reach new audiences.
 * Work with both local and international teams on product definition and execution.
 * Oversee product launches from concept through execution to release.
 * Produce supporting documentation from initial wireframes and mockups all the way through more detailed PRD's.
 * Own key business metrics and drive improvement based on those metrics.
 * Work with product marketing on product introduction to users.
 * Some international travel required.

Requirements

 * 3-5 years Product Management experience preferably at a consumer internet company
 * Strong passion and technical understanding of Internet technologies and the operations of a commercial Web site
 * Ability to lead and inspire cross-functional groups
 * Strong analytical and problem solving skills
 * Excellent written and verbal communication skills
 * Proven track record of shipping successful products
 * Work experience with user generated content a big plus.
 * Knowledge of wikis and or MediaWiki a big plus.

Education

 * Bachelors Degree Required. MBA preferred.

Please send a resume and intro email to [mailto:hiring@wikia.com hiring@wikia.com] and include SPM in the subject line.

Wikia was started by Jimmy Wales (who also founded Wikipedia) and is backed by Amazon, Bessemer Venture Partners, Omidyar Network and a select group of angel investors including Marc Andreessen, Josh Kopelman, Joichi Ito, Mitch Kapor, and Ron Conway.

Community Development Manager (Germany)
Wikia, Inc., the leading provider of community resources for building free content on every topic, is seeking an outstanding Community Development Manager for Germany. This individual must be a German-speaking wiki expert with experience in both community and business development. This role focuses on growth and retention rather than community moderation.

Responsibilities

 * Responsible for the growth and success of Wikia in Germany
 * Create and execute a growth and retention plan for new German language wikis by benchmarking products, competitors, and market dynamics, and by leveraging data analysis, onsite information and interactions with users.
 * Represent the needs of the German Wikia communities to the product, engineering, marketing and community teams
 * Promote Wikia's communities both on and offline through outreach and marketing
 * Foster and mentor new and existing communities
 * Be the face of Wikia in Germany; securing speaking opportunities for yourself, talking to the press, and organizing events for Wikians
 * Develop and execute marketing campaigns, events and contests within Germany to increase traffic and contributors

Ideal Candidate

 * Has a passion for wikis and online communities
 * Keeps abreast of web 2.0 tools including social networking sites, blogs, user-generated content and citizen journalism
 * Is extremely well-written with some PR or marketing training
 * Is an excellent networker and enjoys a multitude of online and offline connections
 * Self-motivated with a demonstrated ability to work independently with attention to detail
 * Has worked at a company with a strong community element (such as a social networking site or online gaming site)
 * Has experience executing online and grass roots marketing campaigns

Requirements

 * Be able to form content and marketing partnerships relevant to Wikia's communities
 * Be responsible for increasing user participation and content generation across all Wikia's German language wikis
 * A friendly and welcoming approach when dealing with users
 * Strong written and verbal communication skills, as well as negotiation, judgment and problem-solving skills
 * Fluent in German with a high level of fluency in English, especially written English. Additional languages an advantage
 * Proven ability to manage multiple projects in a dynamic environment
 * You must have a high speed Internet connection and a suitable working environment (home office).

Please send a résumé and cover letter in plain text to Angela Beesley at [mailto:%61%6e%67%65%6c%61%40%77%69%6b%69%61%2e%63%6f%6d angela@wikia.com] and include 'Wikia Germany' in the subject line.

To explore Wikia Germany, please visit de.wikia.com or browse the list of more than 150 German wikis.

Senior PHP/Web Developer (San Mateo, CA)
Wikia, Inc., the leading provider of community resources for building free content, wants you! If you're a great Senior Web Developer then come work on The Next Big Thing for vibrant on-line communities. We're building a small agile team in San Mateo to work on our core platform, user tools, and new customer-facing web applications.

What do we expect from you?

 * Be smart and be passionate.
 * Expert level PHP and Javascript.
 * Familiarity writing code for scale and using memcache.
 * Familiarity with MySQL and a solid understanding of query optimization and performance.
 * Unix/Linux expertise.
 * Development experience with Mediawiki a big plus.
 * Development experience with YUI a big plus.
 * Design / UI expertise a plus.
 * Previous experience with Wikia, Wikipedia, wikis or other user generated content sites is a plus.
 * Operations experience a plus.

You'll be working with other technical leads, a Product Manager, a Community Manager, and an Operations Manager on bringing a variety of projects to life at Wikia. We're working on a lot of exciting things - want to help?

Please send a resume and intro email to [mailto:hiring@wikia.com hiring@wikia.com] and include SWD in the subject line.

Wikia was started by Jimmy Wales (who also founded Wikipedia) and is backed by Amazon, Bessemer Venture Partners, Omidyar Network and a select group of angel investors including Marc Andreessen, Josh Kopelman, Joichi Ito, Mitch Kapor, and Ron Conway.

Product Marketing Manager (San Mateo, CA)
Wikia, Inc., the leading provider of community resources for building free content on every topic, is seeking an outstanding Product Marketing Manager who can engage and foster thriving online communities, promote and drive feature adoption, measure and track user activity, flow existing traffic to target content areas and be an advocate for tools that help users generate a ton of content.

Responsibilities
The Product Marketing Manager will utilize Wikia's home page, learning areas, community portals and onsite promotion to turn readers into contributors and editors into new wiki founders. The PMM will write promotional content and market new products to existing users, actively encouraging feature adoption and owning the sections of the site devoted to the discussion and presentation of product launches. The PMM also owns the new user experience, including user flows, all help areas, online tutorials, outbound emails, and newsletters.

Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate is a self-starter who is comfortable with the chaos of online communities, the oddities of user-generated content, and the fairly ugly confines of our office in San Mateo. This person is flexible and able to communicate well using a variety of media (i.e. instant messaging, Skype, email, wiki talk pages, cell phone) with teammates in eight time zones and users around the globe. The candidate is a heavy user of one or more of MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia, Flickr, etc. and can verbalize what works and doesn't work on each site. Experience with wikis is a nice plus.

Requirements

 * BS or BA
 * Excellent and creative written and oral communication skills.
 * Well-organized self-starter with attention to detail.
 * Proven ability to manage multiple projects in a dynamic environment.
 * Entrepreneurial spirit.
 * 3+ years experience in marketing and/or product management of a web-based product or service.
 * Experience with online communities as a user or product manager.
 * Strong analytical skills and passion for analyzing and benchmarking products, competitors, and market dynamics.
 * Proactive style with discipline and will to set priorities, drive decisions, and get closure on recommendations and issues.
 * Flexible and willing to do what it takes to ensure success.
 * UI design and usability testing experience a plus.
 * Experience editing wikis a huge plus.
 * Multiple written languages a plus.

Please send resume and cover letter in .pdf format explaining how you currently resemble or how you could become the ideal candidate. Send to [mailto:hiring@wikia.com hiring@wikia.com] and include PMM in the subject line.