It would be nice if there was an appropriately qualified person who was interested in the position - although one must remember that the previous Deputy ED and VP Engineering was very much "of the community" and several past and current engineering and tech leaders (and staff!) have come from the community as well.
On the other hand, given the scope of the job, it really needs someone with solid managerial experience to handle a very large team and the lion's share of the WMF's budget. While there is a lot of talent in the community (and even in the WMF), this job requires much more than developer/engineering skills. The WMF does have some experience with pushing talented and highly motivated developers/engineers into management positions, where they didn't have the skill sets (or, in several cases, the innate desire) to be the kind of leaders needed for those positions; it wasn't a good situation for either the engineers or the WMF. Or, to twist an old expression, it's not good use of resources to try and make a silk purse out of a Cray supercomputer.
Best wishes to Damon.
Risker/Anne
On 2 July 2015 at 22:06, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I think most VPNs are tone deaf. ;)
Yes, in general I would like to see more respect from WMF for the collective wisdom of the community and for the use of volunteer time. Appointing a technical or content contributor to an executive role would be a good thing IMO.
Pine
On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 6:48 PM, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
...
Tone deafness of the WMF, and thank my phone for silly spelling.
On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 7:47 PM, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
You're talking to one now, and I know several others. Now speaking for
me,
I would never want to be "VP of anything", and so I'm certainly not
asking
this on my own behalf, but that's not necessarily true of everyone.
Regardless, I'd at least like to see some preference given toward volunteers who might apply and encouragement for them to do so if qualified. There's been, to put it mildly, some tone deafness of the
VPN
in
dealing with the community, and though some of the people engaged in
that
were indeed volunteers as well, I have no idea if that was actually
their
idea. (I hope not.) Perhaps having some people who have been volunteers actually in charge might help to bridge that disconnect.
On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 7:30 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Todd,
I'm not speaking for WMF or Lila here, just repeating what I've heard
in
other circles: it's rare to find a software engineer or designer who's
an
experienced Wikimedia content contributor. More common, but still far
from
plentiful, are experienced engineers who've contributed to MediaWiki
and
other open source tech tools. Pinging Quim in case he can give us some demographics of Wikimedia's volunteer tech pool and whether he thinks
it
might be possible to find an engineering executive in that pool.
Pine
Pine
On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 6:21 PM, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com
wrote:
Lila,
Will any consideration be given toward selecting a new leader for
the
engineering team who has been an active volunteer with a Wikimedia
project
for some period of time?
Thanks,
Todd
On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 5:35 PM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Dear all,
I wanted to let you know that Damon Sicore’s last day with the WMF
was
June
30th. Damon has served as the Vice President of Engineering and
played a
role in our strategic thinking as we retool to fulfill our mission
of
delivering free and open knowledge to the world. We wish him well.
Some of you may have questions about this transition and our plans
for
Engineering leadership. There’s a small FAQ attached below that
should
address some of the immediate questions about next steps. While I
know
you
may have additional questions, we can’t share more regarding
personnel
issues. Thank you for respecting that confidentiality.
Q. Why did Damon leave? Damon’s departure is a personnel issue, so we are not able tocomment
on
it. Thank you for respecting that confidentiality and Damon’s
privacy.
Q. Who will manage Engineering and Technology?
Lila and our interim Chief Operating Officer Terry Gilbey will be
sharing
oversight for the Engineering and Technology teams at the C-level.
They'll
work closely with the strong leadership of the audience verticals
and
individual teams. Lila, Terry, Katie Horn, Toby Negrin, Trevor
Parscal,
Wes
Moran, and the C-team are committed to doing our best to minimize disruption to your day-to-day work, and to support you during this transition.
Q. Who will guide Engineering decisions and set goals?
The basic direction for the Engineering team is articulated in
their
approved Q1 goals. The team will continue to deliver on these
commitments.
The audience team leads will meet regularly with Lila to ensure
that
their
work remains aligned with the WMF’s technical vision.
Q. What does this mean for the new Engineering and Technology
department
structure?
The department structures for Engineering and Technology remain
the
same.
The audience verticals reflect the emerging strategy, and we
believe
they
remain the best way to organize the WMF’s teams, based on the work
we
have
ahead of us in the next few years.
Q. Will there be any additional department reorganization as part
of
this?
We’re not planning any additional organizational changes.
Q. What does this mean for the ongoing CTO search?
We are already underway with the CTO search; this will continue as
planned.
The CTO role is an important part of executing against the WMF’s engineering strategy. We look forward to bringing on board a new
CTO
with
the leadership, perspective, and skills that the position entails.
Q. Will we recruit for a new Vice President of Engineering? What
is
the
timeline?
Our priority will continue to be filling the CTO role. Once we
have
identified a CTO we’ll revisit the role of VPE, to ensure that the
new
CTO’s perspective is taken into consideration. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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