Career Opportunities at Tala

Job Description

As the Lead Product Manager, your mission will be to lead product strategy and execution for Kenya, one of Tala’s most exciting and longest running markets.  As a key member of the Tala Kenya leadership team, you will be responsible for defining and delivering the future of our end to end product experience in Kenya, working in close collaboration with the Kenya GM and global product leads to achieve exceptional business results while delivering in market on Tala’s vision of financial agency for all.

Job Requirements

1. Develop and optimise the product strategy and  holistic product roadmap for Kenya in collaboration with the GM and global product leads
2. Take innovative new product lines from concept through to execution and scaling, beginning with the Tala Account
3. Build business cases and drive outcome oriented product prioritisation decisions
4. Cultivate and communicate a deep understanding of Tala’s audience, opportunity, and competitive landscape in Kenya
5. Deliver clear and compelling product specs, partnering closely with engineering to ensure excellent development execution
6. Influence key stakeholders in Kenya and globally to drive a cohesive product and market strategy, generating strategic and operational alignment through excellent thought leadership, planning and communication
7. Lead quarterly and annual product planning for Kenya in close collaboration with country leadership and global product leads
8. Leverage quantitative and qualitative insights coupled with a deep understanding of both consumer behavior and the local financial services ecosystem to drive outsized impact and ROI
9. Collaborate with Marketing and Growth teams to drive go to market planning of new products and services in Kenya, beginning with the Tala Account
10. Actively contribute to corporate strategy and company culture as a key member of Tala’s Country Leadership team and leader of the country development squad

Qualifications

1. 6+ years experience in Product Management, with track record of success in finance, consumer mobile apps or related industries
2. Demonstrated ability to ship products and deliver meaningful business resultsDeep understanding of the Kenyan FinTech and/or consumer mobile ecosystem
3. Capable consumer of modern analytics tools with strong data fluency
4. Strong understanding of modern development practices and planning processes
5. Comfort working in a fast paced, dynamic environment with distributed teams
6. Strong leadership presence with ability to vision set and manage through influence

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Job Description

As the Associate Counsel, your mission will be to work with the global Tala Legal team in managing regulatory licensing, corporate governance, licensing, commercial agreements and compliance in Kenya.  Additionally, you’ll handle commercial agreements, due diligence and special projects related to Tala’s legal operations. Assist the Chief Legal Officer and work closely with applicable Senior Regulatory Counsel compliance and FinTech licensing projects.  This work involves a lot of “doing” versus “managing.”  We need an all-star attorney who is excited to “roll up his or her sleeves” with drafting agreements and policies while also providing strategic advice. .

Job Requirements

1. Manage regulatory compliance, corporate governance and other compliance matters in Kenya
2. Be primarily responsible for legal matters in Kenya
3. Manage Tala’s licensing and registration obligations for existing and future business lines in Kenya
4. Stay up to date on relevant rules and regulations and work with the US Legal team to evaluate how they may affect Tala’s innovative and growing business
5. Support contract negotiation and collaborate with business teams to develop effective relationships with partners, contractors and vendors
6. Maintain our contract management system

Qualifications

1. A passion for Tala’s mission
2. Law Degree
3. 5+  years of legal experience
4. Experience with consumer finance and financial regulation
5. Experience working in the US or with US clients
6. In house legal experience, ideally at a FinTech or financial services company (Preferred)

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Job Description

As the KE Engineering Lead , you will manage and recruit a team of Backend Software Engineers for KE. As a coach and mentor, the Engineering Lead will guide the team towards advancing Tala’s mission and business objectives. As a leader within the Engineering Department, he/she ensures consistent practice of Tala’s engineering processes and standards. Close interactions with the US office and collaboration with the other Engineering hubs across the globe are vital to the success of this role.
This is a leadership role within Tala’s management track and will be part of the Country Leadership Team. You will report to the Head of Engineering and collaborate cross-functionally with all Tala teams across the globe.

Job Requirements

1. Lead and manage a team of Backend Software Engineers and KE Engineering Manager to execute on current roadmap
2. Recruit, mentor, coach and level-up 5 to 10 Engineers
3. Effectively partner with Product and Program management team to achieve Key Results
4. Review design documents, do code reviews and weigh in on tech implementation choices
5. Support and collaborate with cross functional teams (Customer Experience, Product, Program, Data, Credit, and BI) to ship scalable software solutions
6. Work on High Level Technical approach and feasibility review for new key initiatives
7. Effectively manage and drive the engineering team to achieve results while adhering to Engineering principles
8. Provide guidance on squad staffing changes, comfortably handle change management and reduce context switching for the team.
9. Review architectural changes to our platforms and provide guidance on the same 

Qualifications

1. 7+ years of software engineering experience, including hands-on technical management
2. 5+ years coding in one of the following languages: Java, Scala, GoLang and/or PHP
3. 5+ years of experience as an Engineering Manager with People management skills
4. Demonstrated ability to recruit and manage technical teams, including performance management
5. Developed and launched large scale consumer applications on Cloud infrastructure (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure) using microservices architecture paradigm
6. Experience with designing tables/schemas in relational database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or MS SQL)
7. Working knowledge in REST API development for Mobile/Web use
8. Hold your own in technical discussion, be a subject matter expert, and have strategic influence
9. Expert proficiency in Agile development process
10. Excellent ability to prioritize and communicate in a fast-paced environment
11. BS/BA degree in Computer Science or related fields

Bonus

1. Experience in predictive analysis and machine learning
2. NoSQL databases

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Job Description

As the User Researcher Specialist , your mission is to contribute meaningfully to the growth of Tala’s Kenya business by ensuring a deep shared understanding of our customers’ daily lives, attitudes, behaviours, and needs. You will generate insights to drive empathy-fueled actions across Tala’s strategic efforts in areas such as current product improvements, experimental new product development, competitive analysis, and financial health.

Job Requirements

1. Deep market research on landscape of available financial services, under the supervision of our senior research staff
2. Responsible for involved product reviews and teardowns
3. Contribute meaningfully to the development of new and exciting products for Tala Kenya by ensuring a deep shared understanding of our customers’ daily lives, attitudes, behaviors, and needs
4. Generate insights to drive empathy-fueled action across Tala’s strategic efforts in areas such as experimental new product development, competitive analysis, and financial health
5. Implement best practices in human-centered design and mixed research methods
6. Design, execute and analyze research to contribute actionable insights to the strategic goals new business, using human-centered design techniques and mixed research methods
7. Collaborate cross-functionally with team members across Tala through all stages of research to ensure a deep shared understanding of our users and drive empathy-fueled action

Qualifications

1. 2+ years in applied user research inside innovative consumer fintech, financial, mobile or digital companies or design research / market research firms
2. Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Research, Social Sciences (Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology), Marketing, Communications, or a similar field
3. Experience working in a dynamic and fast-paced start-up environment
4. Experience working in design research or market research firmIdeally experience working with international teams
5. Familiarity with consumer finance products and services and general fintech landscape in Kenya

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Job Description

As the Product Marketing Manager, your mission is to effectively develop and deliver a customer-centric communication experience that articulates Tala’s value and positive impact on our customers’ daily lives from serving their immediate financial needs to helping develop long-term healthy financial habits.  You will build an enduring relationship with customers that drives conversion, engagement, retention, and loyalty. As a key member of the Tala Product Marketing team, you will be responsible for helping define and deliver an exceptional customer experience grounded in a deep understanding of our customers’ lives and the markets they operate in. The role will be fully responsible for all communications with our Kenya customers as well as collaborating, contributing, and in some cases leading global strategic product marketing initiatives that impact all the countries we serve today (Philippines, Mexico, India in addition to Kenya).

Job Requirements

1. Drive messaging and go to market planning of new products and services tied to clearly defined success metrics.
2. Build, manage, and  end-to-end customer communications campaigns that will lead to measurable KPI growth across conversion, engagement, and retention metrics.
3. Identify improvements to messaging, initiate experiments to test hypotheses, analyze results, and reiterate as needed.
4. Spearhead product positioning and messaging for new product launches, grounded in brand principles and market insights.
5. Generate cross-functional partnership and operational alignment across diverse teams including Product Management, Insights, Design, Brand, and Customer Experience.
6. Articulate product value to customers through their entire lifecycle that builds customer loyalty through the most effective communication channels to drive outsized impact and ROI . 
7. Define user segments and create tailored campaigns for key customer personas.
8. Cultivate and communicate a deep understanding of Tala’s audience, opportunity, and competitive landscape in Kenya.

Qualifications

1. 5+ years experience in Marketing, with demonstrated expertise in building and managing mobile marketing campaigns (push, SMS, in-app) using modern marketing and CRM tools.
2. Demonstrated ability to create go to market plans for new products and deliver meaningful business results.
3. Comfortable working in a fast paced, dynamic environment with distributed teams.
4. Capable consumer of modern analytics tools; strong data analysis skills and ability to translate data into actionable insights.
5. Strong writing skills and careful attention to detail.
6. Self-started, solution-oriented, and can-do attitude.
7. Understanding of the Kenya’s digital lending/ banking and/or consumer mobile ecosystem (preferred).
8. Hands on experience launching and scaling products for developing markets (preferred).
9. Competent in using Braze or similar marketing CRM (preferred).

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Job Description

We are looking for a Software Development in Test (referred to as Sr. SDET henceforth) who is passionate about using cutting edge test automation tools and technologies to create robust test frameworks and test suites in order to speed up the product delivery process without compromising quality and performance. This hands-on, roll-up-your-sleeves role will ensure quality control across Tala’s backend services and mobile applications in multiple markets.

Job Requirements

1. Develop test automation suites to expand test coverage to all our microservices and integrate it into regression and release process
2. Deliver framework for performance testing to be used on-demand and as part of regular testing
3. Deliver tools to help test integration with 3rd party services (Payment Rails, SMS/Email, KYC (know your customer), Analytics, etc.)
4. Integrate automated tests execution into the software development process
5. Mentor junior team members
6. Collaborate with squad lead and other key stakeholders to strategize rollout
7. Support and collaborate with cross-functional teams (Product, Data, Credit, and Business Development) in identifying automation areas to further increase the quality of our product
8. Maintain, review, propose and implement improvements to existing frameworks, tools and processes

Qualifications

1. Minimum 3+ years of experience in building test tools and frameworks using Java/Groovy/Kotlin/Scala/Python, Jenkins or similar CI-CD tools, Shell Scripting, Linux/ Mac OSX for either backend or frontend services
2. Experience with BDD testing paradigm and one of the Behavior Driven Testing frameworks such as Cucumber, Spock or JBehave
3. Experience in front-end automation tools such as Selenium, Appium, Espresso or Kaspresso
4. Experience with one or more version control systems such as Github, Gitlab, Perforce
5. Excellent ability to communicate and collaborate with a globally distributed team
6. Experience working in an Agile development process (Scrum/ Kanban/ Scrumban)
7. Preferred BS Degree in Computer Science and/or Math or equivalent skills

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Job Description

The Senior Backend Engineer builds and extends Tala’s backend architecture to support new country launches, new features, and fast growing user base. As a technologist and a leader, the Senior Backend Engineer pushes the team towards building a highly available, scalable, reliable, fault tolerant, and performant microservices platform. The Senior Backend Engineer follows and improves upon Tala’s engineering processes and standards while advancing Tala’s mission and business objectives. This is a technical leadership role within Tala’s technical track. You will report to the Backend Engineering Manager and collaborate cross-functionally with all Tala teams across the globe.

Job Responsibilities

1. Design and implement features as defined in the Product roadmap
2. Review design documents, perform code reviews, and weigh in on implementation choices from other technical teams
3. Collaborate and support with cross functional teams (Product, Data, Credit, and Business Development) to ship scalable software solutions
4. Continually improve our codebase with clean and efficient code as well as solving problems using the most appropriate technology
5. Contribute to complete migration of legacy codebase to microservices architecture
6. Contribute to the testing infrastructure to increase code coverage for backend modules
7. Advance monitoring and alerting capabilities of backend modules to allow proactive improvements to availability and response times 
8. Technically lead and mentor a team of Backend Engineers to build/extend complex modules

Job Requirements

1. 4+ years of backend software engineering experience
2. 4+ years coding in one or more of the following languages: Java, Scala, Kotlin
3. Developed and launched large scale consumer applications with the backend on Cloud infrastructure (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure) using microservices architecture paradigm
4. Expert knowledge in REST API design and development for mobile/web use
5. Expert proficiency in Agile development process
6. Excellent ability to prioritize and communicate in a fast-paced environment
7. Strong relational database experience (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or MS SQL)
8. Strong non-relational database experience (Cassandra, Redshift, DynamoDB, HDFS)
9. BS degree in Computer Science or related fields is a plus
10. Demonstrated ability to interview candidates and evaluate technical skills

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Job Description

As the Senior Project Manager, your mission will be to drive high performance of teams by building strong lines of communication across our global offices. You will support the delivery of products and initiatives using Agile practices and provide input into resource planning and allocation in coordination with the Program Management lead. You will also act as the team champion to ensure team alignment and support a culture of continuous learning through the establishment of consistent retros, post-mortems, and team health metrics.

Job Requirements

1. Support the delivery of products and initiatives using Agile practices and by serving as ScrumMaster for assigned teams. 
2. Participate in quarterly planning and bi-weekly reviews for the squad he/she/they supports as well as continuous reporting and unblocking. 
3. Organize roadmaps, timelines and review meetings for broad consumption.
4. Support a culture of continuous learning through the establishment of consistent retros, post-mortems, and team health metrics.
5. Provide input into resource planning and allocation in coordination with the PMO lead. 
6. Develop a strong understanding of context (across markets) of our internal tools to optimize for efficiency, productivity, and team morale.
7. Be the team champion to ensure team alignment, advocate product and be the subject matter expert for our internal tools.

Qualifications

1. 2-3 years of Project Management experience with proven expertise in Agile methodologies, concepts, practices, and standards.
2. 2+ years experience leveraging software development and team collaboration tools like JIRA, Confluence, Smartsheet, etc.
3. Checked ego, humble, empathetic, collaborative, service-oriented attitude of “customer first”.
4. Experience managing technical programs and projects for distributed teams across multiple locations and countries a bug plus.
5. Must have strong communication skills – role will be responsible for intra-team and inter-team communication, as well as status reporting and risk event updates, so candidates must have strong written and verbal english skills.
6. Flexibility to respond to changing requirements and juggle multiple responsibilities.
7. Must be comfortable working both as part of a team and independently – includes ability to set priorities which accurately reflect the relative importance of job responsibilities and follow through on assignments with minimal direction. This role requires high EQ, comfort in taking ownership, and the ability to understand when escalation is needed.
8. Proven ability to coach and mentor others who are learning project management and Agile practices in a replicable, scalable way.