Openings at Safaricom Kenya

Role Description

You will be responsible for owning, managing, and driving quality engineering practices within our various Agile Release Trains (ARTs). Current ARTs include Digital, Business Payments and Credit. You will be fully responsible for functional, non-functional and automated testing within the specific agile release train.

What you will be doing

Leadership

• Regular team and one-on-one engagements;
• Build the skillset according to the fit for future program;
• Team performance managementand building high performing SDET team;
• Facilitate and empowers teams in achieving high performances in Solution delivery, ensuring quality standards are achieved.

Functional Testing

• E2E accountability for testing execution;
• E2E accountability for management UATsNon-Functional Testing;
• E2E accountability for performance testing;
• E2E Accountability for GDR testing and disruptive testing.

Automated Testing

• E2E accountability for testing automation as part of the DevOps strategy;
• Responsible for automated regression testing for all exposed APIs;
• Responsible for automated regression testing for all backend system APIs to be used for upgrades;
• Responsible for decreasing the testing time by 50% and increasing coverage and quality to have zero major bugs on production.

Systems accountability

• Accountable for building and maintaining testing environments for all IT solutions
• Accountable for setting upand maintaining quality engineering platforms

Competencies you require for the role

• Extremely valued as a thought partner across all teams and viewed as an invaluable role model for peers
• Natural “servant” Manager, with the ability to develop and communicate the objectives, inspire, coach, and motivate staff
• Able to recruit, mentor, and develop large teams spread across multiple initiatives
• Ability to understand long-term (‘big picture’) andshort-term perspectives of events and change and how they relate to achieving business outcomes
• Organizationally savvy, with understanding of the political climate of the enterprise and how to navigate obstacles and politics.
• Knowledge of both the current Telecommunications and digital services market and emerging business and technology trends

Apply if you have:

• Master’s or bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Administration, or another related field;
• Five (5) or more years of work experience in software quality assurance, testing, programming and /or systems analysis;
• At least three years of software engineering or quality assurance; managership responsibilities in large delivery organizations;
• Extensive experience of software QA methodologies, tools, and processes, with experience writing and executing comprehensive test plans and cases;
• Extensive experience of automated testing tools and frameworks;
• Extensive experience working with agile methodologies, such as Scrum, Kanban, XP, TDD and BDD;
• Extensive experience working with multiple programming and scripting languages, such as JavaScript, Ruby, SQL, and Python;
• Competency in UX/UI principles and practices;
• Experience working in cloud-native environments;
• Professional experience and knowledge of the Telecommunications industry preferred;
• Certified Scrum Developer (CSD) preferred.

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Role Description

Your responsibilities will include championing the digital transformation of M-Pesa as we prepare for millions of our customers and merchants to transition from feature phones to smartphones. This includes bringing the voice of the customer, industry trends and design thinking to the M-Pesa app and actively engaging and influencing key internal and external stakeholders. You will be the “linchpin” between the engineering teams and the business.

What you will be doing

Champion App Product Strategy & Execution:

• Own the vision for the consumer fintech app across 7 Markets;
• Lead 80+ people across Engineering, UX and Product to achieve product delivery;
• Drive the roadmap, incorporate industry and customer research to create a transformative product;
• Be a customer advocate, drive superior customer experience via UI/UX,  define customer journeys based on customer need, define acceptance criteria for every customer journey;
• Master product backlog: prioritize for business impact and superior customer experience;
• Rally product creation colleagues to drive timely results – developers, business analysts, architects, delivery managers, operations support, etc.

Spearhead Partnerships to Drive Innovation:

• Define partnership strategy for the app including on loyalty and rewards to drive engagement;
• Drive business development with relevant 3rd parties, negotiate key commercial and product terms and support legal on contracting across 7 markets.

Build "trusted advisor" relationship with business leaders across M-Pesa markets

• Co-develop launch and go to market plans with local product managers to drive uptake and engagement;
• Offer strategic support on the digital strategy and business case;
• Drive commercial rationalisation of the service roadmaps balancing requirements from multiple markets.

Competencies and Behaviours you require for the role

• Strong knowledge of mobile money, fintech and financial services;
• Experience with emerging market consumers, and multicultural sensitivity;
• Keen understanding of digital product lifecycle & software/mobile development;
• Experience with Agile/Lean management;
• Analytical bent of mind, structured thinker with strong business acumen;
• Results-driven self-starter;
• Solid influencing and negotiation skills.

Apply if you have:

• Over 8 years of professional experience with at least 5 years of digital product management at a fintech, bank or other relevant digital business
• Strong knowledge of mobile money, fintech and financial services
• Bachelor’s degree required, a Master’s degree in a related field preferred
• Certification in Scaled Agile Framework
• Contagious passion for, and commitment to driving mobile money growth and innovation
• Willingness to travel frequently