Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
Thomas: Our plans for the reserve are included in the WMF Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for the 2010-11 Audited Financial Statements: *The cash balance has increased from $12 million to over $21 million. What is the * *Wikimedia Foundation's view on its increasing cash reserve?* * * *The Wikimedia Foundation wants to have an appropriate amount of cash in reserve. * *This is important for stability and the overall financial health of the organization. * *A nonprofit wants to ensure it has a sufficient amount of cash available to it, so that it doesn't * *face a crisis in the event that unforeseen costs arise, or that an external or internal event hurts its ability to fund-raise.* *Different non-profits have different levels of reserves: it is common for young or very * *small non-profits to have as little as a few months' spending available in their reserve * *fund and while others may have as much as three years' spending in theirs. There is no * *generally accepted consensus on what size of reserve is appropriate but the Wikimedia * *Foundation has been able to grow its reserve over time. The current reserve represents * *less than one year of funding, at our current spending level. We believe that's * *appropriate for a growing non-profit of our size and age, with our goal to have one year * *of operating funding available over time.* Each of our annual plans, including the Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan for 2012 - 2013http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf on page 54, show that the reserves of the Wikimedia Foundation are built up intentionally consistent with the above statement. Any surplus from operations are in addition to the planned growth in the reserves of the Wikimedia Foundation. Regards, Garfield On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 2:55 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: On 18 March 2013 20:00, Garfield Byrd gb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Thomas: The Wikimedia Foundation is looking at its capacity to hire and is reviewing how many positions we can hire next fiscal year. We are working overall to have a good annual plan that matches our outcomes, but with a dynamic movement like this one, variance from plan is a part of the process as we want to make sure we are spending money prudently and not just to meet plan. In statistics we don't call it variance if it is always in the same direction - we call it bias. A high variance is often unavoidable, but bias is generally a bad thing. You'll note, my question wasn't about changing the spending, it was about changing the planning process. You shouldn't spend money just to meet your plan, certainly, but you should plan as accurately as possible. Prudence should be explicitly allowed for in reserves or a contingencies budget, it shouldn't appear accidentally due to biased planning. In addition, since unspent money goes into the Wikimedia Foundation reserves, which we are still in process of building, we have some time to calibrate the the annual planning process to the needs of the Wikimedia Movement and the Wikimedia Foundation. Can you elaborate on your plans for the reserves? When I search for reserves policy on the foundation wiki, it doesn't find anything. That is extremely worrying... Reserves should be built up intentionally, not as a result of accidental underspends. Either you need the reserves, in which case you should plan to save the money, or you don't, in which case you should either spend the money or not raise it in the first place. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Garfield Byrd Chief of Finance and Administration Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext 6787 415.882.0495 (fax) www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
Yes, I've seen the mentions in the FAQs. That doesn't constitute a reserve policy and is very vague. In the absence of a reserve policy, we must assume your policy is to have the planned level of reserves. If you underspend and put the extra in reserves, that means you have too much in reserves. If you have some long-term target and you simply reach that target earlier by underspending, that could be reasonable, but you don't seem to have long-term plans for your reserves. On Mar 21, 2013 12:31 AM, Garfield Byrd gb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Thomas: Our plans for the reserve are included in the WMF Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for the 2010-11 Audited Financial Statements: *The cash balance has increased from $12 million to over $21 million. What is the * *Wikimedia Foundation's view on its increasing cash reserve?* * * *The Wikimedia Foundation wants to have an appropriate amount of cash in reserve. * *This is important for stability and the overall financial health of the organization. * *A nonprofit wants to ensure it has a sufficient amount of cash available to it, so that it doesn't * *face a crisis in the event that unforeseen costs arise, or that an external or internal event hurts its ability to fund-raise.* *Different non-profits have different levels of reserves: it is common for young or very * *small non-profits to have as little as a few months' spending available in their reserve * *fund and while others may have as much as three years' spending in theirs. There is no * *generally accepted consensus on what size of reserve is appropriate but the Wikimedia * *Foundation has been able to grow its reserve over time. The current reserve represents * *less than one year of funding, at our current spending level. We believe that's * *appropriate for a growing non-profit of our size and age, with our goal to have one year * *of operating funding available over time.* Each of our annual plans, including the Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan for 2012 - 2013 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf on page 54, show that the reserves of the Wikimedia Foundation are built up intentionally consistent with the above statement. Any surplus from operations are in addition to the planned growth in the reserves of the Wikimedia Foundation. Regards, Garfield On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 2:55 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 18 March 2013 20:00, Garfield Byrd gb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Thomas: The Wikimedia Foundation is looking at its capacity to hire and is reviewing how many positions we can hire next fiscal year. We are working overall to have a good annual plan that matches our outcomes, but with a dynamic movement like this one, variance from plan is a part of the process as we want to make sure we are spending money prudently and not just to meet plan. In statistics we don't call it variance if it is always in the same direction - we call it bias. A high variance is often unavoidable, but bias is generally a bad thing. You'll note, my question wasn't about changing the spending, it was about changing the planning process. You shouldn't spend money just to meet your plan, certainly, but you should plan as accurately as possible. Prudence should be explicitly allowed for in reserves or a contingencies budget, it shouldn't appear accidentally due to biased planning. In addition, since unspent money goes into the Wikimedia Foundation reserves, which we are still in process of building, we have some time to calibrate the the annual planning process to the needs of the Wikimedia Movement and the Wikimedia Foundation. Can you elaborate on your plans for the reserves? When I search for reserves policy on the foundation wiki, it doesn't find anything. That is extremely worrying... Reserves should be built up intentionally, not as a result of accidental underspends. Either you need the reserves, in which case you should plan to save the money, or you don't, in which case you should either spend the money or not raise it in the first place. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Garfield Byrd Chief of Finance and Administration Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext 6787 415.882.0495 (fax) www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
Thomas, I agree with you that it would make sense to have a more thoroughly defined reserve policy, but I also caution against micromanaging the reserve. I believe that I said in my previous email directed to Erik that I'm wondering what the downside is of having some underspend for payroll due to hiring that happens later than planned. Unless the underspend is significant enough that it should impact the targets used by the Annual Fundraiser in a significant way, believe that the underspend isn't much of a concern. The issue that worries me about delayed hiring is the possibility of delays or disruptions to program schedules. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
On 18 March 2013 20:00, Garfield Byrd gb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Thomas: The Wikimedia Foundation is looking at its capacity to hire and is reviewing how many positions we can hire next fiscal year. We are working overall to have a good annual plan that matches our outcomes, but with a dynamic movement like this one, variance from plan is a part of the process as we want to make sure we are spending money prudently and not just to meet plan. In statistics we don't call it variance if it is always in the same direction - we call it bias. A high variance is often unavoidable, but bias is generally a bad thing. You'll note, my question wasn't about changing the spending, it was about changing the planning process. You shouldn't spend money just to meet your plan, certainly, but you should plan as accurately as possible. Prudence should be explicitly allowed for in reserves or a contingencies budget, it shouldn't appear accidentally due to biased planning. In addition, since unspent money goes into the Wikimedia Foundation reserves, which we are still in process of building, we have some time to calibrate the the annual planning process to the needs of the Wikimedia Movement and the Wikimedia Foundation. Can you elaborate on your plans for the reserves? When I search for reserves policy on the foundation wiki, it doesn't find anything. That is extremely worrying... Reserves should be built up intentionally, not as a result of accidental underspends. Either you need the reserves, in which case you should plan to save the money, or you don't, in which case you should either spend the money or not raise it in the first place. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
On 13 March 2013 07:58, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: For 13-14, I've asked for finance and HR to work with us in applying performance metrics based on our hiring velocity and attrition rate in 12-13 against the hiring plan for the purpose of estimating the actual dollar spend. I've applied those same metrics to our total req # ask, as well. Instead of attaching unrealistically precise timing to each position, we'll develop a hiring plan that's focused on an a rough overall prioritization of requisitions. Erik, I noticed I never responded to your email. Thank you for your answer. I'm glad to see someone is taking this problem seriously. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
Erik, Thanks for the explanation. Let me ask about this issue from another angle. Is it much of a problem to have a requisition planned to fill early in the year with the possibility that it won't be filled until late in the year? The delay likely provides some excess financial capacity but I don't know if the amount would be large enough to be significant. Also, similar one of your points, I wonder about the downsides to unrealistically precise predictions of when requisitions will be filled. I imagine that HR has unplanned turnover during the year that they are tasked to deal with, and demanding that they fill planned vacancies on a tight schedule might have the undesirable effect of limiting their flexibility to deal with unplanned vacancies as turnover happens. Pine -- Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:58:12 -0700 From: Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements Message-ID: caeg6zhmd4dntsec+-f+z4yjapd2pbxrgo+pt27clw1+-hs8...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 11:12 PM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: Hm, I guess a planning problem could be the root cause, but since Erik seems to be saying that WMF has found a number of good candidates outside of SF and yet the statement in the FAQ for the mid-year financials said that the competition in the SF region for engineers is the reason for WMF hiring being slower than planned On the tech side, we've filled 11 position in the first half of 12-13, and we'll have filled another 6 by end of March. I'm confident that we'll have filled at least about 20 positions by the end of the fiscal (some of those are replacements for people who've left rather than new positions). We've also made 9 of 10 planned conversions of temporary contractors. While the competition for local talent does affect our velocity to some extent, I actually don't think the problem is with hiring velocity per se (we're hiring at a pretty reasonable rate), but rather with being more data-driven in how we construct the estimates for the plan, both in terms of # of requisitions, and in terms of calculating the spend for the planned hires. In the 12-13 Plan (and that was also largely the process before), hiring managers were generally asked to fill in estimated start dates for each hire. These estimates, with a little buffer to correct for a known tendency to optimism, were then used as the basis for the financial input into the plan. That may sound reasonable, but it essentially turns the question of hiring velocity into guesswork at the level of the individual hiring manager. Moreover, it has had a weird incentivizing effect of budgeting hires as early as possible, because that would give hiring managers the runway to open a position early, and the buffer to fill any backlogged requisitions in the second half of the fiscal year. If you review the hiring plan on the last page of the 12-13 plan, you'll notice that almost all start dates are in the first half of the fiscal. That's risk mitigation -- but not a very good way to do it. For 13-14, I've asked for finance and HR to work with us in applying performance metrics based on our hiring velocity and attrition rate in 12-13 against the hiring plan for the purpose of estimating the actual dollar spend. I've applied those same metrics to our total req # ask, as well. Instead of attaching unrealistically precise timing to each position, we'll develop a hiring plan that's focused on an a rough overall prioritization of requisitions. So there's definitely potential for a more accurate estimation while moving away from false precision. That said, I always caution people about the delusions of planning. An exercise like the Narrowing Focus this year was both very necessary, but has also had a significant impact on the organization as a whole and many planned expenditures, for example. We need to retain the flexibility to make conscious decisions that deviate from the plan, and the realism to acknowledge uncertainty. On the second point, while we have a record to look back on, obviously we don't really know what our true hiring velocity and attrition rate are going to be for 2013-14, and we can reasonably expect to be off by a few positions. I would much rather acknowledge that explicitly in the plan than pretend that this uncertainty doesn't exist. For this reason, I've proposed to Sue an explicit stage-gating of a set of hires. By that I mean that we would unlock a set of requisitions (we're considering building out a new team that could be easily gated) only if specific hiring objectives are met by a given date, and we'd clearly flag the associated expenses as being stage-gated in this fashion. I don't know if Sue or the Board will accept that proposal
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
Hm, I guess a planning problem could be the root cause, but since Erik seems to be saying that WMF has found a number of good candidates outside of SF and yet the statement in the FAQ for the mid-year financials said that the competition in the SF region for engineers is the reason for WMF hiring being slower than planned, I'm having a hard time figuring out what is truly causing hiring to be slower than planned. After hearing Erik's comments, I'm not getting the feeling that the competition in the SF area for engineering talent should be a reason for hiring being slower than planned, so I too would appreciate some further explanation about why there is a disconnect between the plan and the pace of hiring. Pine Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:13:36 +0100 From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements Message-ID: caltqccck4tr92usclaajnmdrzpzcysjgdufjdsp-a_h5xgy...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Garfield, Thanks for sharing the report. Once again, there is a significant underspend. Does that concern you? It seems the WMF is consistently not fully utilising its capital (so, either, you're fundraising too much or doing too little). It often seems to be the case that the underspend is due to not hiring new staff as quickly as expected. The FAQ mentions that the plan was overly ambitious. Do you have a plan in place to ensure your future annual plans include more realistic projections of hiring and other spending? On 11 March 2013 20:17, Garfield Byrd gb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hello: The mid-year financial statements of the Wikimedia Foundation are available at the Wikimedia Foundation - Financial Reports page.http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports This report is for the period from July 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012. Please contact me with any questions. Regards, Garfield Byrd -- Garfield Byrd Chief of Finance and Administration Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext 6787 415.882.0495 (fax) www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 11:12 PM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: Hm, I guess a planning problem could be the root cause, but since Erik seems to be saying that WMF has found a number of good candidates outside of SF and yet the statement in the FAQ for the mid-year financials said that the competition in the SF region for engineers is the reason for WMF hiring being slower than planned On the tech side, we've filled 11 position in the first half of 12-13, and we'll have filled another 6 by end of March. I'm confident that we'll have filled at least about 20 positions by the end of the fiscal (some of those are replacements for people who've left rather than new positions). We've also made 9 of 10 planned conversions of temporary contractors. While the competition for local talent does affect our velocity to some extent, I actually don't think the problem is with hiring velocity per se (we're hiring at a pretty reasonable rate), but rather with being more data-driven in how we construct the estimates for the plan, both in terms of # of requisitions, and in terms of calculating the spend for the planned hires. In the 12-13 Plan (and that was also largely the process before), hiring managers were generally asked to fill in estimated start dates for each hire. These estimates, with a little buffer to correct for a known tendency to optimism, were then used as the basis for the financial input into the plan. That may sound reasonable, but it essentially turns the question of hiring velocity into guesswork at the level of the individual hiring manager. Moreover, it has had a weird incentivizing effect of budgeting hires as early as possible, because that would give hiring managers the runway to open a position early, and the buffer to fill any backlogged requisitions in the second half of the fiscal year. If you review the hiring plan on the last page of the 12-13 plan, you'll notice that almost all start dates are in the first half of the fiscal. That's risk mitigation -- but not a very good way to do it. For 13-14, I've asked for finance and HR to work with us in applying performance metrics based on our hiring velocity and attrition rate in 12-13 against the hiring plan for the purpose of estimating the actual dollar spend. I've applied those same metrics to our total req # ask, as well. Instead of attaching unrealistically precise timing to each position, we'll develop a hiring plan that's focused on an a rough overall prioritization of requisitions. So there's definitely potential for a more accurate estimation while moving away from false precision. That said, I always caution people about the delusions of planning. An exercise like the Narrowing Focus this year was both very necessary, but has also had a significant impact on the organization as a whole and many planned expenditures, for example. We need to retain the flexibility to make conscious decisions that deviate from the plan, and the realism to acknowledge uncertainty. On the second point, while we have a record to look back on, obviously we don't really know what our true hiring velocity and attrition rate are going to be for 2013-14, and we can reasonably expect to be off by a few positions. I would much rather acknowledge that explicitly in the plan than pretend that this uncertainty doesn't exist. For this reason, I've proposed to Sue an explicit stage-gating of a set of hires. By that I mean that we would unlock a set of requisitions (we're considering building out a new team that could be easily gated) only if specific hiring objectives are met by a given date, and we'd clearly flag the associated expenses as being stage-gated in this fashion. I don't know if Sue or the Board will accept that proposal, but it would give us the flexibility to make certain hires if we perform well against the base-level plan. Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
Le 2013-03-11 21:33, Erik Moeller a écrit : On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 1:06 PM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: I'd like to ask you or Gayle about how aggressive WMF is about recruiting outside of SF. I'm not Gayle or Garfield, but here's some simple data on the most recent hires: Sr. Software Engineer, Mobile - to be announced shortly - remote, not relocating Sr. Software Engineer, Mobile - to be announced shortly - remote, relocating to SF Ops Engineer (offer pending) - remote, not relocating Greg Grossmeier, Release Manager - SF Ed Sanders, Software Engineer, remote, not relocating Brad Jorsch, Software Engineer, remote, probably relocating Munagala Ramanath, Sr. Software Engineer, remote, relocating Contractors: Marc-Andre Pelletier, Software Engineer, remote Kirsten Menger-Anderson, Technical Writer, SF So the general answer is, yes, we're aggressively [*] looking internationally, and we're aggressively hiring internationally, with the caveat that some positions are strongly preferred to (ultimately) be SF-based to function effectively. Where are job offers so we can apply? -- Association Culture-Libre http://www.culture-libre.org/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
On 12 March 2013 13:03, Mathieu Stumpf psychosl...@culture-libre.org wrote: Where are job offers so we can apply? http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
Garfield, Thanks for sharing the report. Once again, there is a significant underspend. Does that concern you? It seems the WMF is consistently not fully utilising its capital (so, either, you're fundraising too much or doing too little). It often seems to be the case that the underspend is due to not hiring new staff as quickly as expected. The FAQ mentions that the plan was overly ambitious. Do you have a plan in place to ensure your future annual plans include more realistic projections of hiring and other spending? On 11 March 2013 20:17, Garfield Byrd gb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hello: The mid-year financial statements of the Wikimedia Foundation are available at the Wikimedia Foundation - Financial Reports page.http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports This report is for the period from July 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012. Please contact me with any questions. Regards, Garfield Byrd -- Garfield Byrd Chief of Finance and Administration Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext 6787 415.882.0495 (fax) www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
Le 2013-03-11 22:20, Leslie Carr a écrit : On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 1:33 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 1:06 PM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: I'd like to ask you or Gayle about how aggressive WMF is about recruiting outside of SF. I'm not Gayle or Garfield, but here's some simple data on the most recent hires: Sr. Software Engineer, Mobile - to be announced shortly - remote, not relocating Sr. Software Engineer, Mobile - to be announced shortly - remote, relocating to SF Ops Engineer (offer pending) - remote, not relocating And Ops is still looking for more Engineers, remote or local! http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=ocLCWfwfc=qSa9VfwQ Tell your friends! :) Leslie thank you for the link :) -- Association Culture-Libre http://www.culture-libre.org/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
Garfield, Thanks for the report. Congrats again to the fundraising team for what they accomplished this for this round of fundraising. The QA for the mid-year report talks about a hiring pace that is slower than planned, and says We attribute this to the fact that the market for engineers is extremely competitive in San Francisco right now. I'd like to ask you or Gayle about how aggressive WMF is about recruiting outside of SF. I think there are probably engineers at large tech companies outside of SF who would enjoy a change of culture from their current employers to WMF if they're willing to take a pay cut. I think that they would be good candidates for the recruiting team, so I'd strongly encourage aggressive recruiting outside of San Francisco. Thanks, Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 1:06 PM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: I'd like to ask you or Gayle about how aggressive WMF is about recruiting outside of SF. I'm not Gayle or Garfield, but here's some simple data on the most recent hires: Sr. Software Engineer, Mobile - to be announced shortly - remote, not relocating Sr. Software Engineer, Mobile - to be announced shortly - remote, relocating to SF Ops Engineer (offer pending) - remote, not relocating Greg Grossmeier, Release Manager - SF Ed Sanders, Software Engineer, remote, not relocating Brad Jorsch, Software Engineer, remote, probably relocating Munagala Ramanath, Sr. Software Engineer, remote, relocating Contractors: Marc-Andre Pelletier, Software Engineer, remote Kirsten Menger-Anderson, Technical Writer, SF So the general answer is, yes, we're aggressively [*] looking internationally, and we're aggressively hiring internationally, with the caveat that some positions are strongly preferred to (ultimately) be SF-based to function effectively. Erik [*] When it comes to persistence and thoroughness. In actual candidate interactions aggression would be somewhat misplaced. ;-) -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: Brad Jorsch, Software Engineer, remote, probably relocating Eventually. No idea when. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
