Chief Technology Officer at Arifu

Job description

The Opportunity:

Arifu, a high-growth edtech company in Nairobi, is looking to hire an ambitious and analytical Chief Technology Officer to realize a bold vision of placing a smart personal learning assistant in everyone's hands across Africa and globally. This is a full-time position with equity participation based at Arifu’s headquarters in Nairobi.

As part of the core leadership, the CTO will work closely with the COO, CLO, and CEO. You will manage and work closely with software engineers, product managers, data scientists, and learning designers to drive our pioneering technical innovation agenda by applying machine learning, data science, NLP, and conversational interfaces to personalize information and opportunity for millions of people.

Job Description:

You will have the following responsibilities:

• Develop a clear vision, objectives, and implementation strategy for the technology product of Arifu;
• Attract, structure, lead, and inspire a high performing team of engineers, product managers, data scientists, hackers, and designers;
• Identify competitive advantages and technological trends for the benefit of Arifu;
• Oversee the design, development, and deployment of a highly profitable and impactful learning platform in key expansion markets initially across Africa and then to Asia and Latin America;
• Guide near term innovations including the adaptive learning engine, predictive analytics, and natural language interface;
• Collaborate closely with the education and learning team to improve engagement and other key learning outcomes for users;
• Provide perspective and guidance on long-term scalable architecture, strategy, investments and innovation;
• Publish technical white papers on the innovations behind our product's impact;
• Contribute thought leadership with industry executives at the organizations that Arifu works with across financial services, agriculture, consumer goods, energy, health, telecommunications and other sectors;
• Facilitate workshops, hackathons and seminars to position Arifu as an edtech industry leader and attract top level talent;
• Participate in community events, trade meetups, and industry workshops in Nairobi and globally.

Basic Qualifications:

Ambition and a desire to have impact are prerequisites on the Arifu team. For this role, we’re also looking for someone with the following:

• Master-level degree in Computer Science;
• Practical experience applying AI/ML into product development;
• 10+ years of relevant professional experience with at least 5 years in a leadership capacity;
• Track record of end-to-end mobile product development and deployment resulting in strong engagement KPIs;
• Demonstrated ability to think strategically about how technology can advance business objectives;
• Proven ability to design, coach, and lead a high performing and dynamic tech team;
• Working technical knowledge in all areas relevant to the Arifu product: MVC, PHP, Java, MySQL, Android, Python, R, AWS, Bitbucket, CSS, SMS, HTML5, and Laravel;
• Experience with DevOps, Continuous integration and deployment and micro-services architecture.
• Experience with server and database frameworks and tools such as Ubuntu, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL and MongoDB;
• Ability to communicate with non-technical audiences;
• Ability to live and work at least 50% in Nairobi, Kenya.

Preferred Qualifications:

Extra points for the following:

• Ph.D. in Computer Science;
• Master’s degree in Business Administration;
• Experience developing and applying for patents;
• Strong understanding of and history working in East Africa.
• Compensation and Benefits:

We aspire to be competitive on compensation although, as an early-stage social enterprise, many on the team work just below market rate. To make up for that, staff are able to participate in the Arifu employee share program. We also offer a comprehensive health insurance package and will cover the cost of a work permit for foreign staff. Other benefits include monthly airtime allowance, extra leave, a stocked kitchen, and plenty of ping-pong and foosball.