Technical Product Manager at iPay Africa

The Technology Product Manager at iPay will be a key member of our IT & Operations team, responsible for the technical direction, strategy, overall prioritization, design, development, and overall delivery of world-class digital experiences that resonate with how our customers live their lives. This role will be the link between Business and IT.

There will be a focus on the overall success of highly visible and prioritized efforts, and you will own and drive overall planning and project execution. This position requires strong leadership skills, a capability to build effective technical-project teams, and a results-driven attitude. To deliver to expectation, you will collaborate and partner closely with the IT Infrastructure Lead, Marketing Manager, key business stakeholders, and business teams along with various IT & Ops teams.

To fit in, you must believe in the power of APIs, be jazzed about delivering amazingly simple experiences that transform and improve people’s lives through simple, straightforward digital tools and technology. Note: - Bottomline, you need to prove that you can present customer needs to the technical team and ensure that they provide the expected solution within the prescribed timeline.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

• Build effective relationships with key internal business, operations, IT, product, design, and external partner teams.
• Stakeholder Management: strategy, tactical execution, communications, etc. Work collaboratively with C-level executives, Product owners and other key stakeholders in the organization.
• Lead the definition of product requirements using input from various sources including external sources such as market trends, technology innovations, industry standards, bold intelligence, and customer research, as well as internal sources such as analytics, marketing, operations, and customer feedback.
• Manage feature prioritization & trade-off decision-making in collaboration with other Technical Product stakeholders, business & engineering teams and ensure alignment of business goals with the incremental delivery of solutions.
• Lead the design and conceptualization of the customer experience including the look & feel of the customer journeys, development of functional designs and wireframes, creation of product collateral, and user interfaces.
• Ensure delivery of scalable, reliable, and maintainable platforms and solutions.
• Assess the business impact of different solutions and the trade-offs between customer needs, technology requirements and costs.
• Work closely with peer Technical Teams across all products and channels capabilities to prioritize initiatives, share insights on customer demands, identify opportunities for teamwork, and coordinate product development and delivery.
• Serve as a product evangelist & subject matter expert to the technical/developer community.
• Ensure Knowledge Transfer and hand over to Support teams and users.
• Assess & address all delivery risks.
• Define success criteria for product acceptance.
• Lead Key Change Projects and maintenance and ensure timely and successful deployment of products and service in the market.
• Work with the Compliance Manager and ensure proactive and timely identification, assessment, advice and dissemination of evolving regulatory practices and associated risks relating to technology.
• Work with other Heads of Department in preparation of the Business Cases and overseeing the implementation until full product benefits are realized.
• Evaluate new technologies for their potential application to business processes.

General Requirements:

• Demonstrated leadership, maturity, and strong organizational skills.
• Strong written & verbal communication skills.
• Superior interpersonal & collaboration skills with demonstrated ability to use diplomacy & communication skills to influence outcomes and influence others.
• Financial services and Digital technology experience.
• Experience and expertise in project planning, including product definition, feature prioritization, trade-off processes, and roadmap creation.
• Strong analytical skills with hands-on experience in conducting technological analyses of business problems developing technical roadmaps, story outlines, writing user stories, refining product backlogs, and coordinating/prioritizing conflicting requirements in a fast-paced, demanding environment.
• Ability to work across geographies, understand the diverse cultures and manage people and partners cross culturally.
• Ability to work independently, without the need for day-to-day guidance, make independent decisions and influence positive outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Experience leading a team of Technical Product Managers and maintain an organized oversight of specific product delivery
• to ensure the proper balance of speed, features, timing, and integration with other functions, in tight coordination
• with Program and Project Management.
• Ability to set expectations and hold individuals and team members accountable to their commitments.
• Experience with Design Thinking or similar empathy-driven customer-focused design methodologies.
• Customer-centric mindset with a passion for discovering consumer behaviour, trends, and opportunities for innovation
• Business Analysis experience in a high-tech company a plus.
• Intermediate understanding of programming languages, software architecture, data analytics, MI reporting etc.

Knowledge & Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree in information technology, engineering, or related field required.
• Postgraduate qualification in Project Management, Analytics would be an added advantage.
• Minimum five (5+) years’ experience as a technical product manager or similar role related to product creation and management, in financial services, retail banking or related field.
• Demonstrable Experience in Customer Management or Customer Needs Analysis.
• Experience in building large scale software systems and platforms and API integrations.
• Must have minimum five (3+) years of API (Server-side) hands on development experience.
• Demonstrable expert experience in building loosely coupled systems (Microservices) using RESTful API.
• Strong knowledge of internal and external API exposure related security concerns.
• A certificate of good Conduct is a MUST.

Personal Attributes

• Strong human relations, leadership, and communication skills.
• Strong analytical, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.
• Structured thinker, effective communicator with excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Excellent listening and interpersonal skills.
• Keen attention to detail.
• Highly self-motivated and self-directed.
• Ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment.
• Experience working in a team-oriented, distributed & collaborative environment.