Soko Technical Product Manager Job in Nairobi, Kenya

Job Title: Technical Product Manager

Reports to: CEO, acting as interim CTO / CIO

Contract Level: Standard, Full-time

Salary: Commensurate with experience

Location: Nairobi, Kenya
 

About Soko: Soko aspires to transform the status quo of how trade is conducted with emerging markets, to create a more ethical supply chain. 

 

Soko is a catalyst for Global Supply Chain innovation, leveraging our proprietary ERP and mobile enterprise solutions in a distributed network of SME producers for a more ethical and agile production model. 

We employ over 1200 artisans around Nairobi in a ‘Virtual Factory’ model that utilizes technology to enhance human productivity for greater reward. 

Our commitment to ethical production has led to growing demand for our products from companies such as Nordstrom and  Anthropologie, hundreds of boutiques, and thousands of online consumers.

Role: The technical product manager is responsible for defining market requirements and packaging the features into product releases. 

This position involves close interaction with development leads, product architects, and key users.  

A strong technical background is required. Job duties include gathering requirements from existing and potential users or project managers, writing technical requirements documents & agile product backlogs, and monitoring the implementation of each product project.

Tasks

• Take a lead role in defining the technical objectives within the system to reach scale and achieve our business objectives; including proactively documenting and proposing next generation technology implementations, applications design, database design, data-flows and detailed technical design.


• Able to work with other department managers to meet the company’s technological and project goals, creating software, defining dependencies and use cases, and designating tasks to employees for a smooth operation.


• Responsible for presenting solutions to the global management teams and partners.


• Helping the business stakeholders envision the future and how their work will need to change to fit new technology releases to support the future.


• Delivering elements of systems design, including data migration rules, business rules, wireframes, or other detailed deliverables.


• Understanding the needs of multiple stakeholders. Own the project prioritization across the team and define project scope and roll-out, designated tasks and mentor technical team members to achieve the projects on time and in good quality.


• Work closely with the Senior Software Engineers to mentor and grow them as key players in the organization long term.


• Provide creative approaches & critical thinking around data to support a data driven culture throughout the organisation.


• Collect, analyze, and present actionable data to drive marketing, business development and product management decisions at a senior level.


• Design, implement, and support a platform that can provide structured and ad-hoc access to datasets


• Model data and metadata for ad hoc and pre-built reporting


• Facilitating the negotiation of requirements amongst multiple stakeholders.


• Identifying the current- and future-state business processes.


• Employ data mining, segmentation, and other analytical techniques to capture important trends in the user base.


• Collaborate with developers to define and set up A/B testing of new features and functionality on the platform.


• Responsible for defining market requirements and packaging the features into product releases.


• Creating, analyzing, and validating detailed functional specifications.


• Facilitating design sessions with the implementation team to define the solution.


• Lead the deployment and delivery of solutions using primarily agile development techniques.


• Strict deadlines and long hours are part of the job, and one needs to have flexibility and open communication at all times while working within strict budgets.


• Willing to innovate, experiment and fail fast to build robust solutions

The technical stuff:

• At least 5 years experience managing technical teams.


• Masters in Computer Science or MBA or related technical field or equivalent practical experience.


• Quality should be at the heart of everything you do. Along with the wider team, you’ll be responsible for ensuring quality and security of the application


• An excellent understanding of application design and architecture, including database interactions, server side scripting, form handling and general application development.


• Significant experience of internet and networking technologies and protocols, including HTTP, TCP, IP, SMSC, SMPP.


• Experienced in using Source Control (SVN/Git).


• Experience of using Agile development methods across a number of teams, automated builds and continuous integration.


• Expertise in building clean, api driven code


• Experience in interfacing with complex back-end systems


• Significant experience of designing and developing web solutions using open source technologies, including Ubuntu, HTML5, Android development, Apache, MySQL, Python, XML, CSS, XHTML, Javascript Frameworks, Architecture Experience, Graphics, & Web Development


• Proven experience of Web Services (Rest/SOAP)


• Willing to work hard, learn and meet tight schedules

How to Apply

If interested in this amazing opportunity, passionate to innovate and grow within emerging markets while having fun, send your CV to info@shopsoko.com with the subject title TECHNICAL PRODUCT MANAGER
 

Soko is an equal opportunity, anti-corruption, and affirmative action employer.

More information about Soko can be found on our website www.shopsoko.com.