Dear all,
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role. Please join us in welcoming him to the team.
The VPE role will be crucial to further developing and maintaining the technology that supports the very core of the Wikimedia movement, and ensuring the development, scale, and stability of the MediaWiki architecture.
Damon joins us as part of planned growth of our product and engineering teams, first announced in November 2012. As we have grown, we need dedicated focus on product and engineering as separate departments, to ensure development of best practices like performance engineering, continuous delivery, A/B testing, software re-architecture, UI/UX work, and user research. Erik Moeller, who filled the role of VP for both product and engineering since 2011, led in the creation of this new role and was essential to the search process. From today onward, Erik will focus on his role as VP of Product and Strategy and Deputy Director of the WMF, while Damon will take over leadership of the Engineering team; both will report to me as part of the c-level team.
Damon has a unique track record of managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in a transparent, open source environment. These skills and experiences will be invaluable in his work here at the Foundation. It’s unusual to find someone who understands us so well, and so I want to thank the many people from across the organization, especially in the engineering, product, and human resources teams, who have been involved in making this search successful.
We are very happy to have Damon on board. His proven track record of managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in a transparent, open source environment, is unique and invaluable as part of our movement.
We’ll be sending around a copy of the press release shortly. You’ll also be be able to meet Damon, and ask him questions, this Thursday at our monthly Metrics Meeting https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings. Please join us there!
Please join me in welcoming Damon.
Lila
On 29 September 2014 13:38, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role. Please join us in welcoming him to the team.
Welcome, Damon. Looking forward to working with you.
J.
Thanks for this good news that's timely for Strategic Plan development.
Damon, it would be nice if you would set up an IRC office hour for Q&A with the community.
Cheers,
Pine
On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 10:40 AM, James Forrester jforrester@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 29 September 2014 13:38, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role. Please join us in welcoming him to the team.
Welcome, Damon. Looking forward to working with you.
J.
James D. Forrester Product Manager, Editing Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
jforrester@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Lila Tretikov, 29/09/2014 19:38:
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role.
Nice to see this long story reach an end. Welcome, Damon. It will be interesting to see the experience from previous friend orgs merge into ours.
Will we also soon get to know what this role is actually going to do? :) I still have the same questions: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/62910/focus=62937 (98 weeks old, gmane helpfully calculates).
Nemo
2014-09-29 20:41 GMT+02:00 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
Lila Tretikov, 29/09/2014 19:38:
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role.
Nice to see this long story reach an end. Welcome, Damon. It will be interesting to see the experience from previous friend orgs merge into ours.
+1 (for the lazy ones: «[Damon] spent six years at the Mozilla Corporation, where he grew a small team of 27 people to a team of more than 600 open source software engineers, technical leads, managers, and directors in developing Mozilla Firefox, the Mozilla open source platform, Firefox for Android, and Firefox OS. Most recently Damon served as VP of Engineering at Edmodo, Inc., an educational content network, and was responsible for all web, platform, and mobile engineering, security, IT operations, support, and QA efforts.»)
Welcome Damon!
Cristian
On 29 September 2014 16:32, Cristian Consonni kikkocristian@gmail.com wrote:
2014-09-29 20:41 GMT+02:00 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
Lila Tretikov, 29/09/2014 19:38:
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role.
Nice to see this long story reach an end. Welcome, Damon. It will be interesting to see the experience from previous friend orgs merge into
ours.
+1 (for the lazy ones: «[Damon] spent six years at the Mozilla Corporation, where he grew a small team of 27 people to a team of more than 600 open source software engineers, technical leads, managers, and directors in developing Mozilla Firefox, the Mozilla open source platform, Firefox for Android, and Firefox OS. Most recently Damon served as VP of Engineering at Edmodo, Inc., an educational content network, and was responsible for all web, platform, and mobile engineering, security, IT operations, support, and QA efforts.»)
Welcome Damon!
I am admittedly amongst the lazy, so thanks, Cristian.
Welcome, Damon.
Risker/Anne
Risker wrote:
On 29 September 2014 16:32, Cristian Consonni kikkocristian@gmail.com wrote:
(for the lazy ones: «[Damon] spent six years at the Mozilla Corporation, where he grew a small team of 27 people to a team of more than 600 open source software engineers, technical leads, managers, and directors in developing Mozilla Firefox, the Mozilla open source platform, Firefox for Android, and Firefox OS. Most recently Damon served as VP of Engineering at Edmodo, Inc., an educational content network, and was responsible for all web, platform, and mobile engineering, security, IT operations, support, and QA efforts.»)
Welcome Damon!
I am admittedly amongst the lazy, so thanks, Cristian.
Welcome, Damon.
Hah, yes, my thanks as well. The context was very helpful. :-)
Re: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Template:Staff_and_contractors
What's the timeline for re-organizing the current Engineering and Product Development group? End of 2014, the first quarter of 2015, sooner, later? Like others in the Wikimedia community, I'm excited and eager to see this long-awaited change move forward.
MZMcBride
On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 7:10 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Re: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Template:Staff_and_contractors
What's the timeline for re-organizing the current Engineering and Product Development group? End of 2014, the first quarter of 2015, sooner, later?
Damon is in charge of the following areas as of today, and handover is underway: - Platform Engineering - Features Engineering - Language Engineering - Mobile Engineering - Technical Operations - Team Practices Group
I'll continue to be responsible for the following groups: - Product Management - User Experience - Analytics - Community Engagement - Wikipedia Zero (minus the engineering part, which lives in Mobile Engineering)
These changes will be reflected on the staff page shortly. Needless to say we are providing support in transitioning approvals, hiring pipelines, and other day-to-day management responsibilities.
As noted before, Analytics is a bit of an odd fit in either group, since it includes both engineers and data analysts, and we'll continue talking about what makes sense here, but it needs to be closely aligned with product management which is why it's in my group at this time.
Any growing org structure needs some tweaking over time. There's been a fair bit of internal discussion already about the best future org structure for these internal groups in particular: Platform/Features/Language/Mobile. There are some felt pain points in the current division of engineering responsibilities through those groupings (in particular, some of the silo effects that it creates). Discussions about how to improve the org structure will continue under Damon's leadership, and it'll be up to him to set the timetable for any changes he wants to make.
Erik
+1 Welcome, Damon!
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 10:42 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 7:10 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Re: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Template:Staff_and_contractors
What's the timeline for re-organizing the current Engineering and Product Development group? End of 2014, the first quarter of 2015, sooner, later?
Damon is in charge of the following areas as of today, and handover is underway:
- Platform Engineering
- Features Engineering
- Language Engineering
- Mobile Engineering
- Technical Operations
- Team Practices Group
I'll continue to be responsible for the following groups:
- Product Management
- User Experience
- Analytics
- Community Engagement
- Wikipedia Zero (minus the engineering part, which lives in Mobile
Engineering)
These changes will be reflected on the staff page shortly. Needless to say we are providing support in transitioning approvals, hiring pipelines, and other day-to-day management responsibilities.
As noted before, Analytics is a bit of an odd fit in either group, since it includes both engineers and data analysts, and we'll continue talking about what makes sense here, but it needs to be closely aligned with product management which is why it's in my group at this time.
Any growing org structure needs some tweaking over time. There's been a fair bit of internal discussion already about the best future org structure for these internal groups in particular: Platform/Features/Language/Mobile. There are some felt pain points in the current division of engineering responsibilities through those groupings (in particular, some of the silo effects that it creates). Discussions about how to improve the org structure will continue under Damon's leadership, and it'll be up to him to set the timetable for any changes he wants to make.
Erik
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Thanks. Ok, this is clear enough to the mind: basically everything is under Engineering, except the research-y areas (which fits well with Erik's first job title at WMF ;) ).
Erik Moeller, 30/09/2014 06:42:
- User Experience
I suppose this includes all of:
2.4 Design 2.4.1 User Experience 2.4.2 Design Research
Nemo
2014-09-29 23:37 GMT+02:00 Risker risker.wp@gmail.com:
On 29 September 2014 16:32, Cristian Consonni kikkocristian@gmail.com wrote:
[...]
(for the lazy ones: «[Damon] spent six years at the Mozilla Corporation, where he grew a small team of 27 people to a team of more than 600 open source software engineers, technical leads, managers, and directors in developing Mozilla Firefox, the Mozilla open source platform, Firefox for Android, and Firefox OS. Most recently Damon served as VP of Engineering at Edmodo, Inc., an educational content network, and was responsible for all web, platform, and mobile engineering, security, IT operations, support, and QA efforts.»)
I am admittedly amongst the lazy, so thanks, Cristian.
2014-09-30 4:10 GMT+02:00 MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com:
Hah, yes, my thanks as well. The context was very helpful. :-)
You are welcome :)
That said, I forgot to mention the source: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/09/29/damon-sicore-joins-wmf-as-vice-preside...
C
Frederico, in simple terms:
Product == what (we build) Engineering == how (well we build it)
Think of this as an architect and the builder. Both are required to make sure the building is sound.
L
On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 11:41 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Lila Tretikov, 29/09/2014 19:38:
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role.
Nice to see this long story reach an end. Welcome, Damon. It will be interesting to see the experience from previous friend orgs merge into ours.
Will we also soon get to know what this role is actually going to do? :) I still have the same questions: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane. org.wikimedia.foundation/62910/focus=62937 (98 weeks old, gmane helpfully calculates).
Nemo
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Can we get to know his username(s)? :) Am 29.09.2014 19:38 schrieb "Lila Tretikov" lila@wikimedia.org:
Dear all,
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role. Please join us in welcoming him to the team.
The VPE role will be crucial to further developing and maintaining the technology that supports the very core of the Wikimedia movement, and ensuring the development, scale, and stability of the MediaWiki architecture.
Damon joins us as part of planned growth of our product and engineering teams, first announced in November 2012. As we have grown, we need dedicated focus on product and engineering as separate departments, to ensure development of best practices like performance engineering, continuous delivery, A/B testing, software re-architecture, UI/UX work, and user research. Erik Moeller, who filled the role of VP for both product and engineering since 2011, led in the creation of this new role and was essential to the search process. From today onward, Erik will focus on his role as VP of Product and Strategy and Deputy Director of the WMF, while Damon will take over leadership of the Engineering team; both will report to me as part of the c-level team.
Damon has a unique track record of managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in a transparent, open source environment. These skills and experiences will be invaluable in his work here at the Foundation. It’s unusual to find someone who understands us so well, and so I want to thank the many people from across the organization, especially in the engineering, product, and human resources teams, who have been involved in making this search successful.
We are very happy to have Damon on board. His proven track record of managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in a transparent, open source environment, is unique and invaluable as part of our movement.
We’ll be sending around a copy of the press release shortly. You’ll also be be able to meet Damon, and ask him questions, this Thursday at our monthly Metrics Meeting https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings. Please join us there!
Please join me in welcoming Damon.
Lila _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Good news! Damon, a warm welcome to Wikimedia and to these lists.
Sam
On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 1:38 PM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear all,
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role. Please join us in welcoming him to the team.
The VPE role will be crucial to further developing and maintaining the technology that supports the very core of the Wikimedia movement, and ensuring the development, scale, and stability of the MediaWiki architecture.
Damon joins us as part of planned growth of our product and engineering teams, first announced in November 2012. As we have grown, we need dedicated focus on product and engineering as separate departments, to ensure development of best practices like performance engineering, continuous delivery, A/B testing, software re-architecture, UI/UX work, and user research. Erik Moeller, who filled the role of VP for both product and engineering since 2011, led in the creation of this new role and was essential to the search process. From today onward, Erik will focus on his role as VP of Product and Strategy and Deputy Director of the WMF, while Damon will take over leadership of the Engineering team; both will report to me as part of the c-level team.
Damon has a unique track record of managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in a transparent, open source environment. These skills and experiences will be invaluable in his work here at the Foundation. It’s unusual to find someone who understands us so well, and so I want to thank the many people from across the organization, especially in the engineering, product, and human resources teams, who have been involved in making this search successful.
We are very happy to have Damon on board. His proven track record of managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in a transparent, open source environment, is unique and invaluable as part of our movement.
We’ll be sending around a copy of the press release shortly. You’ll also be be able to meet Damon, and ask him questions, this Thursday at our monthly Metrics Meeting https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings. Please join us there!
Please join me in welcoming Damon.
Lila _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Welcome Damon. Nice to have you with us.
//Johan Jönsson -- http://wikipediabloggen.se
måndag 29 september 2014 skrev Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org:
Dear all,
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role. Please join us in welcoming him to the team.
The VPE role will be crucial to further developing and maintaining the technology that supports the very core of the Wikimedia movement, and ensuring the development, scale, and stability of the MediaWiki architecture.
Damon joins us as part of planned growth of our product and engineering teams, first announced in November 2012. As we have grown, we need dedicated focus on product and engineering as separate departments, to ensure development of best practices like performance engineering, continuous delivery, A/B testing, software re-architecture, UI/UX work, and user research. Erik Moeller, who filled the role of VP for both product and engineering since 2011, led in the creation of this new role and was essential to the search process. From today onward, Erik will focus on his role as VP of Product and Strategy and Deputy Director of the WMF, while Damon will take over leadership of the Engineering team; both will report to me as part of the c-level team.
Damon has a unique track record of managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in a transparent, open source environment. These skills and experiences will be invaluable in his work here at the Foundation. It’s unusual to find someone who understands us so well, and so I want to thank the many people from across the organization, especially in the engineering, product, and human resources teams, who have been involved in making this search successful.
We are very happy to have Damon on board. His proven track record of managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in a transparent, open source environment, is unique and invaluable as part of our movement.
We’ll be sending around a copy of the press release shortly. You’ll also be be able to meet Damon, and ask him questions, this Thursday at our monthly Metrics Meeting https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings. Please join us there!
Please join me in welcoming Damon.
Lila _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe>
Hi Damon, looking forward to meeting you. I'd like to welcome you not only to WMF, but to the wikimedia-l list. I encourage you to join the discussions here, even if you feel like you don't have the deep expertise and broad community context that a lot of the big shots who post here may have. I don't, and that hasn't stopped me. :) I'm sure everyone will be happy to help you get up to speed. No doubt others here would agree with me when I say that your active participation in the community is at least as important as your responsibilities within the WMF. In short, the WMF and our community are not sold separately. They are the yang yin that have made the Wikimedia projects what they are today, and one can't exist without the other.
I'm not one to tip-toe around taboos, so I'll directly address something that's important but rarely discussed on this list. Sometimes people get upset and post things here or onwiki that hurt feelings or come off as confrontational. In fact, you'll see the occasional post that has no purpose beyond putting people down and/or making them feel unwelcome. It has been directed at one time or another to pretty much every highly active and/or high-profile Wikipedian. Please understand that this is a natural behavior for passionate volunteers who have done something extraordinary and want to make sure that their hard work continues to have a positive impact in our world.
Our community members have set the bar pretty high by providing content that the entire world depends on, and their high expectations from the WMF and the Mediawiki team to provide the best tools possible for displaying and manipulating that content are well deserved. When I've found myself in the crosshairs, this thought puts me back in the big picture and helps me find a productive path forward.
I hope this helps, and I'm looking forward to your first post on this list. I'm numbering myself among those who are looking forward to your first post.
Best. ,Wil
On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 10:38 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear all,
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role. Please join us in welcoming him to the team.
The VPE role will be crucial to further developing and maintaining the technology that supports the very core of the Wikimedia movement, and ensuring the development, scale, and stability of the MediaWiki architecture.
Damon joins us as part of planned growth of our product and engineering teams, first announced in November 2012. As we have grown, we need dedicated focus on product and engineering as separate departments, to ensure development of best practices like performance engineering, continuous delivery, A/B testing, software re-architecture, UI/UX work, and user research. Erik Moeller, who filled the role of VP for both product and engineering since 2011, led in the creation of this new role and was essential to the search process. From today onward, Erik will focus on his role as VP of Product and Strategy and Deputy Director of the WMF, while Damon will take over leadership of the Engineering team; both will report to me as part of the c-level team.
Damon has a unique track record of managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in a transparent, open source environment. These skills and experiences will be invaluable in his work here at the Foundation. It’s unusual to find someone who understands us so well, and so I want to thank the many people from across the organization, especially in the engineering, product, and human resources teams, who have been involved in making this search successful.
We are very happy to have Damon on board. His proven track record of managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in a transparent, open source environment, is unique and invaluable as part of our movement.
We’ll be sending around a copy of the press release shortly. You’ll also be be able to meet Damon, and ask him questions, this Thursday at our monthly Metrics Meeting https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings. Please join us there!
Please join me in welcoming Damon.
Lila _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org