Technical AI Product Management (Alvin)
- Applications are considered on a rolling basis
VENTURE FOR AFRICA
Venture for Africa offers a 3-month immersion program designed to immerse top local and global talent in the African startup ecosystem.
We enable experienced talent who might be new to the startup space or the particular market they’re looking to enter, to soft-land and gain context while working with a startup or venture fund that's hiring.
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HOW IT WORKS
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Get Matched: Apply and get matched with a VFA startup partner in your area of interest.
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Get Immersed: Spend 3 months in this role, during which you will be immersed in the local context, get plugged into the right networks, and get to understand market nuances.
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Get Working: Work on real project deliverables for your assigned startup while being paid.
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Get Hired: While full-time roles are not guaranteed, you are fast-tracked through ordinary application processes for available full-time roles with the startup after the experience.
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Startup Partner:Alvin
Alvin is a VC-backed startup building API tools that banks can plug into their consumer apps to increase their savings deposit rates and cultivate more creditworthy customers they can confidently lend to.
Engagement Description
Alvin is expanding its Product team to keep up with the increasing demand for new Alvin for Enterprise features in Nigeria and Kenya alike.
They looking for a product manager with a strong technical background in software engineering and applied machine learning as well as a close eye for detail to come in and help them build the future of data-driven retail banking in Africa as an integral part of Alvin’s technology organization.
Ultimately, your goal in this position will be to synthesize business objectives, integration requirements and engineering requirements to groom new features that will help banks increase their savings yield and cultivate more creditworthy customers.
Grooming will include research on novel approaches the team can apply to data-driven products they create and organizing these products for execution on a product roadmap. You will be responsible for managing data-driven storytelling of the results of key product initiatives and helping the company make decisions on what modifications or tests they should apply next in order to optimize business outcomes for Alvin and their customers.
Some of the key responsibilities you'll be saddled with include to:
- Work collaboratively with Engineering, Design and Data teams to define and influence strategy to drive impact in key initiative areas of products that increase savings AUM and cultivate more creditworthy retail customers. This includes writing clear and comprehensive product requirements documentation for new features.
- Own and/or partner in driving impact and tracking success criteria and performance metrics (i.e., Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Objectives & Key Results (OKRs)). You will determine the value of the project, align success criteria and measure success.
- Identify data-informed, short-term and long-term investment opportunities, evaluate tradeoffs and prioritize investments in consultation with cross-functional partners. Determine the projects and features to prioritize in the roadmap that will support the achievement of success criteria and OKRs.
- Liaise with active and prospective clients on their installations of Alvin products.
- Become an expert within the company on the latest technologies in modern banking and embedded finance the company can leverage to make sure clients maintain their edge on digital innovation by choosing Alvin (this includes staying up to date on gamified savings and applied behavioural design strategies in consumer applications).
Reports to: Founders
Skills & Requirements
- You have applied different product prioritization frameworks and have used them successfully but are nimble to develop different approaches as needed.
- You have practical knowledge of object-relational mapping (ORM) and are familiar with server-side templating languages such as Jinja2.
- You have built and successfully shipped products that used the APIs provided by banks and the products were deemed successful according to clearly outlined business KPIs tied to revenue goals.
- You have experience analyzing data to derive actionable insights that drive impactful engineering solutions.
- You have managed the entire lifecycle of new enterprise products before, from ideation through deployment and scale.
- You have experience working with third-party libraries and APIs.
- You have practical knowledge of code versioning tools such as Git.
- You pride yourself on having a strong team spirit and a growth mindset in the face of challenges and uncertainty.
- You have excellent interpersonal skills and can explain complex concepts clearly and succinctly in English. You additionally have a demonstrated ability to communicate ideas effectively with non-technical partners and customers.
Nice-to-have
- You have a bachelor's degree in computer science or a related discipline.
- You have 3+ years of experience as a backend software developer.
About the company
Venture for Africa is a fellowship program designed to fill talent gaps in Africa’s startup ecosystem by enabling top local and global fellows to access opportunities with leading startups in Africa. Our flagship 3-month fellowship program combines on-the-ground experience offering localized context, expert mentorship, and real project work at leading startups hiring now. Launched in 2020, our mission is to accelerate economic growth and technological innovation in Africa by mobilising the next generation of startup talent and equipping them with the experiences and context they need to meaningfully contribute to elevating businesses and livelihoods in Africa.
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