Computer It Jobs at Gap Recruitment Services Limited, Kyosk Digital Services, Cigna and Safaricom Kenya

JOB DETAILS:
Key Responsibilities
• Leadership: Be the leader who your teams looks up to. Improve processes to make them more effective. Develop their knowledge and domain expertise and instil a relentless focus on quality. Take ownership of what your teams build and coordinate their efforts to ensure efficient completion of tasks. Eliminate obstacles that prevent your teams from performing optimally.
• Governance: As a senior-level contributor your role encompasses aspects of corporate governance related to Product Management to help ensure that Kyosk’s investment in Product and Technology deliver optimal returns in line with the business and product strategy.
• Team Development: Actively work with the rest of Product and Technology leadership to build a team that complements, supports and inspires each other to achieve greatness. Ensure effective recruitment, training and development programs are adopted to promote productivity, retention, motivation and morale.
• Product Management: Lead, mentor and grow your team to be formidable contributors to the execution of Kyosk’s overall product strategy. Be a player and a coach. Manage the career path and goals of your direct reports, conducting regular 1-on-1s and having monthly performance dialogues. Handle complex or sensitive people matters with empathy.
• Portfolio Management: Take ownership of the portfolio you are assigned and create a winning experience for Kyosk customers and users. Product Management is above all else a business function, focused on maximising business value from a product. Manage product planning and delivery into a series of releases, and work with the engineering teams to facilitate the rapid and accurate delivery of product updates.
• Performance Management: You will set and review performance and development goals for your teams and report to leadership on how they are performing and how they can improve. You identify timeframes and readiness for promotion of direct reports; solicit cross functional feedback in support of promotions and employee rewards. You will coach and mentor engineers and new managers in the art of delivering successful software outcomes at scale while growing their careers
• Culture: Along with Kyosk’s People organization (HR) and other leaders, you will contribute to a winning culture that spans multiple country boundaries across Africa and is built on collaboration and shared accomplishments while having fun along the way. You eliminate siloed thinking and misalignment that detracts from what needs to be accomplished and you actively work toward stamping out any such behaviours. You help create an environment that fosters innovation and helps Kyosk product managers and engineers take smart risks and learn from failures;
• Strategic Thinking: Drive corporate strategy by ensuring the vision, roadmap and development of the assigned product portfolio are aligned. Plan and execute product strategies that benefit the technology department and the products that we are responsible for. Work with the Product Managers and Software Engineering teams to ensure that the roadmap is realistic and clearly understood.
• Product Delivery: Take ownership of the progress, costs, and quality of delivering product outcomes across multiple teams. Adopt, enforce, and contribute to the agile processes that define Kyosk’s way of working to deliver multiple product releases at scale. Own and refine the processes that your teams use to build and support products within the business. Develop a good understanding of the technology stack and the level of effort involved to enhance each component as it will be crucial to making the right prioritization decisions.
• Operationalize: Work with your team to develop operational procedures and other relevant documentation in collaboration with multidisciplinary teams both internal and external to ensure optimal adoption of products and processes across the business.
• Performance Monitoring: Build a deep understanding of how our products work, how they are developed, and how they are used. Identify and track metrics that ensure performance targets and objectives are met and recommend process improvements. Understand product metrics and seek to improve them.
• Process Improvement: Actively monitor, determine and recommend methods to streamline and improve product management and development processes.
• Stakeholder Management: Prepare and deliver various product portfolio-related presentations, both internally and externally. Act as a senior point of contact between the business and engineering leadership, communicating their needs to the team and vice versa.

Minimum Requirements & Key Skills:
• 10+ years of experience in product management at a senior level in a high performing environment, where tech and innovation is at the forefront (ERP, FMCG, Payments, Messaging industry experience a plus);
• 3+ in a leadership role with people management responsibilities - including providing guidance and direction to product managers, serving as their line manager and coach;
• Be user centric and metrics driven. Know how to analyse adoption, influence peers, and understand longer term product/market direction by staying informed and aligned with fellow product leaders and executives.
• Align multiple teams, products and strategies with Kyosk’s overarching product strategy and related objectives. Ensure that the product and engineering teams know what the vision of the product is and what the business value and drivers are for each phase/sprint of development.
• Know when and how to delegate and how to empower your direct reports to drive delivery within their teams while looking for opportunities to coach and guide them;
• Ensure functional specifications are made available on time and conduct specification reviews with product and development teams when and if required.
• Possess excellent communication skills on technical and non-technical topics.
• Interact with leadership, multiple functional areas (engineering, design, operations, sales, and customer experience), external partners and customers.
• Have a proven ability at managing multiple, competing priorities simultaneously while keeping available resources and budgets in mind.
• Strong analytical skills is a non-negotiable
• Have a keen interest in product management and be familiar with the tools of the trade and the various hats that a product manager wears on a day-to-day basis.
• Experience working with Agile Methodology, SDLC and Scrum and demonstrated experience in managing end-to-end software product life cycles.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science / Engineering or Business degree / diploma (BBA, MBA, Business Analysis certification)

Desired Technical Competencies
• You have built product roadmaps, authored requirement specifications, written user stories and launched products. Now you are guiding teams to do that and are ready to get your own hands dirty when necessary.
• You have experience in e-commerce, telcos, payments, and/or distribution of FMCG products
• You’ve worked with 3rd parties to integrate and scale products and services for rapid product growth.
• You have a genuine knack for numbers and how they are represented, and you are super comfortable with Excel and/or Google Sheets.

Desired Behavioral Competencies
• You view Product Management as a profession and you invest in developing your craft and yourself;
• You have experience in handling the pressure of fast-paced environments typical of a tech startup environment where you wear multiple hats and have access to limited resources;
• You have a willingness to temporarily step into a void left by your peers and subordinates when they are unavailable or have resigned. Also when a new role has been created and is yet to be filled;
• You have a strong desire for continuous improvement;
• You can work under pressure, with tight timelines and ambitious deadlines;
• You have a passion for digital products;
• You can stay motivated through difficult challenges, and occasional long hours;
• Your passion is contagious, and you use it to inspire the rest of the team;
• You have equal empathy for internal users, and our target market of informal retailers;
• You have a strong work ethic and exhibit genuine care for the team and their products, with a willingness to go to any necessary length to ensure their success;
• You have integrity: You do what you say you will do and make no excuses;
• You develop a deep understanding and respect for what each team member is responsible for, and trust them to do their job;
• Your confidence and experience make you trust your instinct and communicate persuasively. You know when to make decisions (even when others might disagree) vs when to build consensus, and you can articulate the strategy and business rationale behind your decisions;
• You are comfortable taking the blame if something goes wrong, and equally quick to give credit to the rest of the team when it goes well;
• You are detail-oriented, process-driven, and organized, and can stay two steps ahead of the work your teams are doing;