Senior Product Manager

About One Acre Fund

Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund supplies smallholder farmers with the agricultural services they need to make their farms vastly more productive. We provide quality farm supplies on credit, delivered within walking distance of farmers’ homes, and agricultural trainings to improve harvests. We measure our success by our ability to make farmers more prosperous: On average, farmers harvest 50 percent more food after working with One Acre Fund.

We are growing quickly. We currently serve more than 800,000 farm families in Eastern and Southern Africa, with more than 7,500 full-time staff, and we aim to serve 1 million farm families by 2020.

Job Description

The Senior Product Manager will work with key stakeholders around the business to consolidate requirements for our future technology solutions to enable us to improve our impact and operating efficiency.  Over the past couple of years we have focussed on digital technology for our field facing staff and we are now increasing our focus on farmer facing technology. Our farming communities are starting to become increasingly aware of the digital space, the appetite for self serving is growing and we want to provide our clients with useful tools they can use themselves. Apart from the client focussed tools we also have many support functions to help our operations run smoothly and efficiently from logistics to finance and accounting and we continue to invest in those tools in parallel to client facing tools moving away from paper based process to technically supported digital functions.    

In order to innovate on how technology can improve service delivery, we need an exceptional individual to play a key role in leading some of our product management initiatives. We are seeking someone with a passion for leveraging technology to do good in the world, and the ability to lead/coordinate across teams and geographies.

Specific job responsibilities include but not limited to: 

• Determine realistic and achievable Product Strategies which are aligned to our overall Technology Strategy and Vision
• Work closely with country-program project/business owners to understand the program requirements and translate them into accurate user stories.
• Collate and document requirements from key stakeholders through open and clear communication with user groups and support staff
• Ensure all requirements have an holistic and strategic benefit to the entirety of One Acre Fund
• Manage the prioritisation and delivery plan of product and feature requirements for the software engineering team via Agile methodology adjusting as necessary
• Communicate with Stakeholders providing project status updates, the development pipeline and ensuring alignment with the prioritisation and delivery plan 
• Facilitate rapid prototyping and adaptation of existing or new tools. Overseeing field trials and testing where necessary to gain feedback and enable continuous improvement
• Provide updates and manage and escalate risks appropriately to necessary leadership including Product Management and the project “Board/SteerCo”
• Work closely with external providers as necessary, building collaborative and effective working relationships accordingly

Career Growth and Development

We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months, and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.

Qualifications

• Bachelor Degree Required. Masters preferred. 
• Relevant Professional qualifications an advantage

Specific skills include: 

• Solid Product Management experience ideally 5 years
• Proven experience of the agile software development process leading Agile SCRUM product development projects
• Experience of writing and managing product roadmaps, epics and user stories
• Experience of user centric design
• Experience of mobile and tablet technology including scaling out to large populations
• Has strong decision making skills and can influence across a matrix organisation and specifically with people and teams where there is no direct authority
• Strong interpersonal skills. This role will require communication and coordination across multiple teams, and individuals. The Senior Product Manager must be capable of communicating complex ideas to a broad audience often with diverse backgrounds
• Has experience of working with senior leadership
• People management skills a definite advantage
• Analytical and problem solving skills
• Excellent attention to detail 
• Can work independently and within a team
• Excellent organisation and time management skills. Has the ability to multi-task and work on multiple workstreams simultaneously
• Proactive, can use initiatie, work in ambiguous situations and applies creative thinking 
• Experience in the developing world and in the agricultural sector is preferred 
• Humility. We are looking for passionate professionals who combine strong leadership skills with good humour, patience, and a humble approach to service to join our growing family of leaders 
• Language: English required

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible

Location

Kigali, Rwanda

Compensation

Commensurate with experience

Benefits

Health insurance, housing, and comprehensive benefits

Sponsor International Candidates 

Yes. African country nationals / East Africans are strongly encouraged to apply.

One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process. Official One Acre Fund emails will always arrive from an @oneacrefund.org address. Please report any suspicious communication here (globalhotline@oneacrefund.org), but do not send applications or application materials to this email address.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

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