Technical Product Advisor – Nairobi, Kenya or Lusaka, Zambia at Tetra Tech

Regional Food Balance Sheet Product Management and Technical Support

• Support development of real-time and forward-looking food balance estimates
• June 2021 – May 2022 (exact dates may be subject to change)
• Nairobi, Kenya or Lusaka, Zambia

The Programme

Tetra Tech International Development Services (http://www.tetratech.com/intdev) headquartered in Arlington, VA, USA is seeking a qualified expert to act as a Stakeholder Engagement Advisor to support the Regional Food Balance Sheet (RFBS) program in the Product Management and Technical Support role. The RFBS program is led by COMESA, with support from AGRA and other donors.

In recognition of the lack of reliable, timely, and accurate data on food balances in many ESA countries, the Regional Food Balance Sheet Product Management and Technical Support program aims to develop real time and forward-looking food balance estimates that can provide early warning on food availability and inform policy decision-making regarding trade and market policies, production support, food aid, and stock management by governments, private sector, and emergency response organizations. These issues have risen further to the fore during the COVID-19 pandemic, which combined with recent locust outbreaks in some East African countries and increasing climate variability across the region, highlights the need for timely and reliable information on food availability in East and Southern Africa (ESA) to support informed regional food security monitoring and response efforts.

The Position

Tetra Tech wishes to engage a Technical Product Advisor with a deep understanding of user-centric digital product development, and ideally an understanding of agricultural food balance analysis and decision-making systems within the East and Southern Africa. In the first phase of the project Tetra Tech will design, build, and test a digital Regional Food Balance Sheet Minimal Viable Product (MVP) focused on maize, beans, and rice, for use by technical users within public and private stakeholder organizations in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi, and Zambia. In future phases and during future assignments it is likely that the Product will be expanded to cover additional crops, countries within East and Southern Africa, and user groups to include cabinet level users within focal countries, private sector actors, or international donor and NGO groups. 

Working closely with the Stakeholder Engagement Advisor and Tetra Tech teams in both the United States and United Kingdom, the Technical Product Advisor will support the design, development, and deployment of the digital MVP and future iterations of the product. S/he will contribute to the strategic design and the front-end interface of the MVP. S/he will work with counterparts within COMESA and AGRA to develop “user journeys” for key stakeholders and guide iterative modification of the product based on ongoing user testing and feedback. Where possible due to travel restrictions, the Technical Product Advisor will meet in-person with prospective users in East and Southern Africa, and otherwise support deployment and testing of the product on the ground throughout the development cycle. 

This assignment will be completed between June, 2021 and May, 2022 with exact dates subject to modification based on evolving project timelines.

For this assignment, the individual will work from his or her residence in Kenya or Zambia, with travel to the AGRA offices in Nairobi and COMESA offices in Lusaka for meetings with key counterparts. The individual will also travel elsewhere within the ESA region, subject to updated travel guidelines and restrictions.

The Person

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, data science, software engineering, statistics, agriculture, or related field. Master’s degree preferred.
• At least 7 years of experience in software product management, working on full-stack application development preferably with some experience in the field of agribusiness / agriculture.
• Experience in working with ETL processes, data transformation tools (such as PowerQuery in MS Excel) and with UI prototyping tools.
• Proven ability to support an end-to-end digital product strategy from product design to scale-up and execute on product development.
• Experience in human-centered design and the execution of complex digital and advanced analytics projects, including working with technical teams (e.g., software engineers, data scientists) and driving the implementation of end-to-end solutions development and analytics.
• Strong problem-solving skills and knowledge of agile development methods.
• Ability to engage with a wide variety of stakeholders including ability to express connections between product strategic vision and discrete software development activities for cross-functional teams and ability to understand user needs and integrate into product design.
• Written and verbal fluency in English. 
• Ability to travel within ESA for up to several days with short notice.