I'm very happy to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation is now opening hiring for the Wikipedia Usability Initiative!
Realized by a grant from the Stanton Foundation, the goal of this initiative is to measurably increase the usability of Wikipedia for new contributors by improving the underlying software on the basis of user behavioral studies, thereby reducing barriers to public participation.
We have three positions open, all local in San Francisco. See the linked pages for details and how to submit your CV:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Interaction_Designer_(proje...)
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Sr._Software_Developer_(pro...)
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Software_Developer_(project)
The new team will be lead by project manager Naoko Komura, who was very helpful in organizing localization and translations for our recent fundraiser, and will coordinate closely with me and the rest of Wikimedia's core developers. Also joining the project will be Wikimedia staff developer Trevor Parscal.
As always, all of Wikimedia's software development is open-source, and we expect to be able to roll improvements into the live Wikipedia environment and general MediaWiki releases over the course of the project.
-- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org) CTO, Wikimedia Foundation San Francisco