Product Manager

Are you an experienced Senior Product Manager who has experience working in start-up environments and developing valuable, usable, viable and technically feasible products that users love from inception? Do you have the ability to understand the user problem and put yourself in the shoes of the customer to address their needs and add value? Are you comfortable with developing rapid prototypes and experiments to validate hypotheses while working with the Engineering team to build new features?

If this sounds like you, continue reading….

ABOUT US

Africa has an untapped talent pool that is increasing exponentially, with a projected workforce that will exceed India and China by 2035 Fuelled by this, our mission is to create work opportunities for millions of Africa’s youth and solve the world’s shortage of technology talent.

Our company SAND has 170+ staff members from 30+ countries with plans to acquire several companies around the world to become a multi-billion dollar global technology services provider that employs over 100K employees across the globe.

We have 3 brands represented in our ecosystem:

• With ALX, we are building the fastest-growing pool of technology talent in the world, training young talent across Software Engineering, Cloud Computing, Data Science and Salesforce. We are shaping the next generation of software engineers in over 60 countries.
• Through our talent agent, The Room, we are creating a community (43+ countries represented to date) for the World’s top tech talent sparking transformative careers by connecting top technology talent with extraordinary opportunities for impact.
• Through Sand Technologieswe support enterprises and scale-ups around the world to develop world class technology products, build great technology teams, generate more revenue, and deliver outstanding customer experience. Our clients include one of the largest cloud computing providers in the world as well as Bestseller A/S (Denmark), Create Prime (New Zealand), Stanbic Bank (Kenya), and Tamara (Dubai).

With varying levels of expertise in software development, data, cloud, machine learning, artificial intelligence, UX design, web development, etc, we providing unparalleled opportunities to technology talent worldwide while reshaping industries, disrupting traditional business models, and creating new opportunities for innovation and growth.

We do hard things!

ABOUT THE PRODUCT & UX DEPARTMENT

We are a team of passionate and dedicated data-driven Product Managers and Ux Designers who are on a mission to to define and develop valuable, usable, technically feasible & commercially viable digital products that our customers (internal and external) love

We adopt a lean startup mindset and are constantly testing, measuring and learning to get to product market fit and start scaling to achieve our ambitious and transformative goals.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are looking for a Senior Product Manager to own and lead all aspects of product development for one of the key platforms in our business. Platforms currently in the works include our Community platform which will build an engaging value-added community for our graduates fostering long term relationship, two-sided Jobs Portal to help place our talent with employer partners and our Directory of innovative startups across Africa and globally to build an entrepreneurship ecosystem.

As a Senior Product Manager, you will be responsible for the end to end product thinking for one of our key platforms. You will coordinate various team members who build the product, while constantly collecting feedback from key stakeholders and customers and incorporating it into improvements to ensure the product fits the various users’ needs.

Your mission, if you accept it, will be to own and lead all aspects of product development including the scope of development for new product features and ongoing feature improvements, backlog grooming, triage and prioritization, and cross-functional coordination to ensure completion within timelines, budget and scope. You will drive overall project progress by distilling requirements into actionable instructions for data engineers and scientists with sufficient accuracy and context.

In this role, no two days will be the same. On one day, you might find yourself writing and prioritizing user stories while defining acceptance criteria. On the next, you will need to communicate project objectives to all team members, ensuring task designation and role requirements are defined. You will be in charge of tracking progress, assessing risks, coordinating delivery, and actively communicating contingency and mitigation plans to the team.

While you might not have direct reports, you will be coordinating individuals with diverse functional backgrounds from various teams to get the product to a successful launch. You will work closely with data scientists and data engineers while collaborating productively with the Technology, Marketing, and Business teams. Your role will also be involving key stakeholders from the leadership team at the appropriate stages of the project to get successful buy-in and guidance.

Your KPIs (dependent on product):

• User and Customer NPS & CSAT

• Customer Engagement & Stickiness

• On time delivery

• Revenue (MRR)

• Customer Churn

• Shortlist to interview, Time to fill, Fill Ratio

REQUIREMENTS:.

• Bachelor’s degree in business management, STEM or related fields

• A minimum of 7 years of industry experience building products with a proven record of successfully delivering high-quality product features.

• • Experience working in a startup environment having been part of a team that has built something from scratch and scaled it. You have a high degree of comfort with experimentation, prototyping, product management.
    • Passion for coaching more junior PMs.

• Strong customer-centeredness mindset

• Experience running large projects using software development tracking tools (e.g. Jira) and project management tools (e.g. Asana)

• Strong familiarity with product management methodologies and best practices & proven ability to complete projects on time, on budget, and to scope defined

• Clear and concise communication abilities to be a bridge between multiple teams, both technical and non-technical

• Experience managing projects with remote teams across multiple time zones is a plus

We would also like to remind you that this is a remote job, which means that you can work from anywhere in the world. However, we have a preference for a GMT to GMT +4 time zone.