WaniKani Content Editor

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Job Description

Tofugu is looking to hire someone to work on improving WaniKani's existing content in its various forms. This role fixes errors, thinks through and acts on content suggestions, does research, develops ideas for improvement projects, and generally just makes WaniKani better, day in and day out, little by little. Through many small changes, updates, additions, and subtractions over time, you'll make a big difference for a lot of learners of the Japanese language.

Responsibilities

• You will go through errors and suggestions sent in by users and staff. This involves collecting, processing, and organizing these suggestions. Then, using critical thought, research, and sometimes debate, to make decisions on what changes should (or shouldn't) be made.


• You will write mnemonics, hints, and other applicable content for items in the WaniKani system.


• You will update, and make decisions about, the meta of items. For example, adding to the block and allow lists, adding or changing meanings, changing word type, updating/writing/switching out context sentences, and the like.


• You will perform self-directed audits and research, considering and proposing ways we can improve WaniKani's content.


• You will keep track of changes made, compiling them into our regular updates for users.

Qualification

• You have a deep knowledge of the Japanese language. Ideally JLPT 2 or 1, or equivalent.


• You have native-level English reading and writing ability. Beyond having "native" level English, you should be a good writer as well. Writing mnemonics is a mix of technical and creative writing, after all.


• You should consistently produce error-free work. There are a lot of little details that this role will handle.


• You have excellent critical thinking ability. You consistently make good decisions. Not all suggestions are good, and many seem like a good idea at first glance. Being able to think through each suggestion to make the right decision (and knowing when to talk to someone else) is very important to perform this role well.


• You should be able to think several steps ahead, beyond what's right in front of you. A change to one item is often a change to another item, which is a change to yet another item (and so on). One simple change can have a cascading effect on many more items, and you'll need to be able to hold all that in your head at the same time.


• You're able to do focused work and create tangible results.


• You have a good knowledge of WaniKani and how it works, and ideally, you have been—or are—a WaniKani user.

About Tofugu

Almost everybody at Tofugu has taken a Japanese (or English, or French, or whatever) class or had tutors. But we experienced a lack of explanation and had to move at the speed of the slowest students. We learned kanji by writing them hundreds of times because "that's just how it's always been done." We all thought there must be a better, more effective way to learn Japanese, even if it's not "traditional." So we began writing. We learned how humans actually learn and made WaniKani for learning kanji because sometimes tradition is overrated.

To supplement our studies, we turned to textbooks and the Internet. Though practical, we found them to be overly-dumbed-down. "This is just the way things are," they said. When we dug deeper into linguistic papers, we found the answers we were looking for, but they were way too weedy and technical for the everyday Japanese learner. So we kept writing, and we've been bridging the gap between Japanese linguistics and you, the Japanese learner, ever since.

We are building tools and writing about the Japanese language for our past selves: people who were (and still are) excited about learning. Then we are sharing everything we can with you. We want to be the Japanese teacher we never had, for you.