Friederike Meltendorf studied translation at the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Moscow State Linguistic University in Moscow, and has worked as a literary translator since 2003. Among her Russian-language translations are Alexander Ilichevsky and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. She has also translated Daniel Alarcón from English, and together they were awarded the International Literary Prize.
Since founding the online publication dekoder.org in 2015, she has worked there as a translation editor.