Openings at Koko Networks

What You Will Do

• As one of our most senior Product leaders and as a business leader you will shape business and product strategy, manage budgets and headcount, and guide and track value creation
• You’ll own the product vision and strategy for a large product area that covers multiple business functions and includes several product squads
• You will lead product managers and squads and oversee the entire product cycle, working with other leaders from Product Design, Engineering, and other functions
• You will provide strategic clarity and a compelling narrative that brings together customer, user, and business needs - enabling teams to translate that into clear deliverables and measurable outcomes
• You are a strong people manager, building and developing a team of product managers to be among the best in Kenya and Africa
• You will develop strong partnerships and co-create with KOKO’s ExCo, leadership team, and external stakeholders to ensure high levels of alignment in your area
• You’ll create an environment that fosters high quality, metrics-driven experimentation and set high standards for how we measure product success
• You will bring and build deep domain knowledge and experience; people across the company will look to you as an expert; and you leverage it through teaching, guiding and coaching others

What You Will Bring to KOKO

• 8+ years experience in product management or closely related roles with a strong track record of shipping high quality products
• Proven ability to deliver business results by developing, prioritising and delivering on a roadmap that addresses customer needs and pain points via innovative products
• You have managed Product teams and are passionate about teaching, guiding, and coaching others for personal growth and to maximise their contribution
• We strongly prefer if you have had experience working in combined software and hardware businesses (with manufacturing and logistics)
• You are a strong leader and people manager, confident and competent at leading individuals and teams. You have excellent communication skills in any medium
• You have a growth mindset; a willingness to own problems. You are comfortable with ambiguity, have a passion for building product, a desire to make things better, and a sense of optimism
• You’re able to easily switch between thinking creatively and analytically for best results

We are looking for a strategic leader with a strong blend of business and technical savvy, with a track record of execution, and who is passionate about shaping markets and experiences across Africa and beyond

What we offer

• We believe that our people are critical for our ambitious growth plans in Kenya and beyond. We want to build an organisation where people thrive, feel included, grow professionally, and enjoy having high impact through their work
• Competitive salary plus a quarterly cash bonus
• Annual compensation reviews - we reward great work
• Hybrid working model - allowing you to split your time between in-person collaboration at one of our offices and working remotely
• Health insurance for you and your dependents (in Kenya)
• 21 days of annual leave plus public holidays plus examination leave
• Ongoing investment in you and your skills, incl. full access to over 5,000 online courses
• The right equipment for the job - a choice of MacBook, Windows, or Linux laptop

go to method of application »

Your Role

KOKO Networks is on a mission to imagine and deliver technology that transforms life in the world’s fastest growing cities. The role we’re looking to fill is a career defining opportunity for someone passionate about this mission and about product management who wants to work with amazing teams of engineers and product designers.

The products and solutions you’ll help build and shape touch hundreds of thousands of people in some of the fastest growing cities in the world every single day. Your job will be to help us grow our business and revenue, acquire and retain customers, make complex logistics and operations more efficient, and delight our colleagues, customers, and partners.

This role requires significant time in the local market and close to our operations in Nairobi. We will only consider candidates based there or willing to relocate there

What You Will Do

• You will build detailed domain knowledge of KOKO’s business plans, markets, and internal realities as a manufacturing and logistics company offering combined hardware and software products
• You will contribute to our roadmap: capture work from a wide range of inputs, understand and prioritise this work so your team is always working on the most impactful projects
• You’ll deeply understand the problems that you’re tackling through research and regular interaction with customers, partners and colleagues; define and frame those problems for the team
• You will collaborate with your team in thinking big, to imagine solutions that solve these problems
• You’ll scope these solutions to their smallest coherent state to ship to users as early as you can
• You’ll constantly evaluate if your solutions have solved the problem through quantitative and qualitative measures, both in MVPs and after full release
• You will own and maintain the quality of the product areas your team is responsible for; deliver high quality software in every release
• You’ll motivate a group of committed, smart people to do the best work of their careers

What You Will Bring to KOKO

• 2+ years experience in product management with a proven track record of shipping quality products
• Ideally you have some UX experience as it’s important to us to think deeply about product design decisions and how to create simple user interfaces
• We prefer candidates who have experience working in combined software and hardware businesses (with manufacturing and logistics)
• You’re entrepreneurial; you don’t need much direction; you're self driven and show ownership
• You can clearly communicate product decisions and the rationale behind them. You’re comfortable with ambiguity. You can help others make decisions by being persuasive
• You’re able to easily switch between thinking creatively and analytically for best results
• Have an understanding of the technical architecture of complex web and mobile applications

What we offer

• We believe that our people are critical for our ambitious growth plans in Kenya and beyond. We want to build an organisation where people thrive, feel included, grow professionally, and enjoy having high impact through their work
• Competitive salary plus a quarterly cash bonus
• Annual compensation reviews - we reward great work
• Discounted health insurance with no-cost financing for you and your dependents (in Kenya)
• 21 days of annual leave plus public holidays plus examination leave
• Ongoing investment in you and your skills, incl. full access to over 5,000 online courses
• The right equipment for the job - a choice of MacBook, Windows, or Linux laptop

go to method of application »

What You Will Do

• As one of our most senior Product leaders and as a business leader you will shape business and product strategy, manage budgets and headcount, and guide and track value creation
• You will provide strategic clarity and a compelling narrative that brings together customer, user, and business needs - enabling teams to translate that into clear deliverables and measurable outcomes
• You are a strong people manager, building and developing a team of product designers to be among the best in Kenya and Africa
• You will develop strong partnerships and co-create with KOKO’s ExCo, leadership and Technology teams, and external stakeholders to ensure high levels of alignment in your area
• You will define a product design vision, along with a plan for evolutionary, iterative updates, that move us towards that larger vision over time
• You will elevate the role, perception, and strategic value of not only the Product Design team but also design concepts such as design thinking, high quality user research, and human-centered design across the enterprise
• You will improve how we design and build product; work with product leaders to ensure our combined teams produce elegant, practical, and coherent designs for users and customers; and be an advocate for user-centered design
• You will set the bar for ‘world class’ research and design work through coaching/mentoring the design of products and solutions, focusing especially on higher-level strategic design work and the most complex design and usability challenges
• You will bring and build deep domain knowledge and experience; people across the company will look to you as an expert; and you leverage it through teaching, guiding and coaching others

We use a suite of tools including Miro, Figma, Userberry, and Hotjar to name just a few. We’re also quick to adopt better tools and processes, so you’ll be more than welcome to help shape our tool suite.

What You Will Bring to KOKO

• 8+ years of product design & UX/UI experience - ideally some in industrial/logistics settings and/or with a focus on complex flows and use cases across customer journeys
• At least five years building and leading a highly effective design organisation that has demonstrated excellence in product design and been through significant growth and/or other organisational challenges
• Broad experience across multiple areas of design such as user research, product discovery, industrial, visual, interaction, experience, and service design
• The ideal candidate must be a strong strategic leader, very confident and competent at leading individuals and teams, and building relationships and shaping strategic more broadly across the organisation
• You have a growth mindset; a willingness to own problems. You are comfortable with ambiguity, have a passion for building product, a desire to make things better, and a sense of optimism
• You’re able to easily switch between thinking creatively and analytically for best results
• Ideally you have experience in a test-driven environment (A/B testing) and the ability to employ qualitative and quantitative data to generate insights that help inform design direction