Sokowatch is transforming communities across Africa by revolutionizing access to essential goods and services. By connecting small merchants to the digital economy, we fix inefficient supply chains and provide services previously unavailable to informal businesses. Sokowatch aims to provide everything a retailer needs, no wholesalers or banks necessary.
Thousands of retailers across Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda use Sokowatch's mobile ordering and delivery platform to receive the goods they need as quickly and cheaply as possible while also accessing growth financing for the first time. We’re looking to grow our team with highly talented and motivated employees who are excited to work in a fast-paced and dynamic startup environment.
Role: Product Management Fellow, reporting to Global Head of Product
Sokowatch is seeking data-driven product management fellows with experience managing success of software amp; hardware products through experiments, established tools, and working with cross-functional teams to deliver one or more product lines for users that increase efficiency, automation, and customer happiness.
Sokowatch’s products and systems currently cover a variety of different functional areas:
- Warehousing
- Dispatch amp; Fleet
- Growth amp; Marketing
- Financial Services
- Merchants
- Suppliers
Location: Nairobi, Kenya. Remote OK
Duties amp; Responsibilities:
- Develop a product vision amp; roadmap to transform the Sokowatch product set
- Manage all product development efforts including interviewing teams, analysing the automation opportunities, presenting recommendations to senior leadership and supporting integration, training and measuring of automation outputs
- Ensure existing hardware and intellectual properties from current business functions are being assessed and repurposed to drive improvement and accountability, and create business value
- Advise senior leadership on world-class operational and digital procedures for running our important business functions, including the co-creation of a delightful innovative environment
- Co-develop predictable processes, data models, execution plans and support tools for teams
- Represent the business teams in the product cycle, and lead prioritization of clear use cases and communication of the product strategy
- Maintain a self-help knowledge base and appropriate communication tools for staff for discussing and documenting new issues and their solutions
- Support adoption of new processes for business teams by using data and agile tools like sprint trackers
- Review and give feedback on features being built by engineers
- Manage innovation budget and opportunities to implement open-source and other plug and play software tools with clear cost-benefit analyses to preserve engineering resources
Requirements
- Able to commit to a 6 month minimum agreement
- 2+ years of experience with product management or building products with immense traction
- Technical knowledge of coding languages including Java, XML, and SQL, or automation tools like Google Scripts, IFTTT, Zapier.
- Epic communication skills and empathy for technical and operational staff in order be the bridge between them
- Passion and drive for solving problems, building, planning and designing tools for teams to thrive
- Demonstrated ability to work in a self-directed manner, seeking out areas that need attention, rather than being asked to look at specific problem areas.
- Consistently asks for help and seeks advice from colleagues to let the best idea or process win
- Ability to grow and maintain a current network of hardware, software and support providers
- Entrepreneurial drive, and proven ability to take ownership, and lead the team’s combined learning
- Natural curiosity and constant improvement
Application: To apply please submit your CV and short statement of interest to