ABOUT US

In 2035, Africa will have the largest workforce in the world and will need to catalyse transformation by empowering its largest untapped resource - its people. Fuelled by this, the African Leadership Group is an ecosystem of institutions with a shared vision to harness Africa's abundant human capital and transform the continent and the world by selecting, developing, and connecting 2 million young leaders to opportunities by 2030. ALG was founded over 15 years ago by Fred Swaniker, a serial entrepreneur recognised by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2019. ALX and The Room are two brands of the African Leadership Group.

ALX is our training arm, focused on developing skills for the fourth industrial revolution (software engineering, devops, data science, etc.) to ensure that Africa is able to compete effectively as the world undergoes a digital transformation. To cement this, through our legal entity  African Leadership International (ALI), we have signed an agreement to acquire Silicon Valley based Holberton Inc. – a project-based, college alternative educating the next generation of software engineers. This will give us ownership of the advanced technology program that will enable us to provide global organizations access to significant untapped pools of talent that can bridge the growing global shortage of technology talent. For more on this, please read this article here.

The Room our talent placement arm, is a community that our young talent join to access global work opportunities. To learn more about us, please read this article about why we launched The Room & this article about the impact of our development programs on African youth. View this pitch deck to see how we present ourselves to employers.

ABOUT THE ROLE

You will own and lead all aspects of product development for an advanced data intelligence platform.
Some responsibilities of the role are:

• Develop Product strategy and roadmap for the Data platform
• Drive adoption of data centric  culture across the organisation
• Collaborate with stakeholders to understand use cases and develop requirements
• Manage scope of development for new product features and ongoing feature improvements, backlog grooming, triage and prioritization, and cross-functional coordination to ensure completion within timelines, budget and scope
• Drive overall project progress by distilling requirements into actionable instructions for data engineers and scientists with sufficient accuracy and context
• Write and prioritize user stories and define acceptance criteria
• Understand and communicate project objectives to all team members, ensuring task designation and role requirements
• Track progress, assess risks, coordinate delivery, and actively communicate contingency and mitigation plans for the team
• Involve key stakeholders from the leadership team at the appropriate stages of the project
• Work closely with data scientists and data engineers, while collaborating productively with the Technology, Product, Marketing, and Business teams

YOUR SUPERPOWERS

• 7+ years of industry experience building data products with a proven record of successfully delivering high-quality product features
• Data-driven mindset and approach to decision making and gaining actionable insights
• Proven ability to complete projects on time, on budget, and to scope defined
• Experience running large projects using software development tracking tools (e.g. Jira) and project management tools (e.g. Asana)
• Experience with data analytics platforms (Google Analytics, Heap/MixPanel, etc.)
• Strong familiarity with project management methodologies and best practices
• Basic understanding of distributed computing environments like AWS/GCP/Azure
• Clear and concise communication abilities to be a bridge between multiple teams, both technical and non-technical
• Experience managing projects with remote teams is a big plus
• Bachelor’s or higher degree in business management or related fields OR Bachelor’s or higher degree in a STEM discipline with a Master’s degree in business management. PhD is a plus.

YOU WILL LOVE THIS JOB IF YOU: 

• Initiative & Courage: You have an owners’ approach and  you are proactive with what needs to be done; you also embrace risks and failure
• Humility & Adaptability: You have a beginners’ mindset and you always seek to learn; you are also flexible and embrace pivoting
• Possibility & Adventure: You are passionate about life, you have a growth mindset and you can thrive on uncertain circumstances and uncharted territory
• Resilience: You tackle difficult situations with a can-do attitude and are relentless in the pursuit of your goals
• Emergent Leadership: You are aware, and can manage, your emotions and those of others very well, you also have an empathetic, collaborative approach to leadership and you love working with others