Job Description

The context:

Across the developing world, more children than ever are in school \xe2\x80\x93 but they are not learning. A recent study estimated that less than 1% of school children in Sub-Saharan Africa attend a school where the teaching meets basic standards of quality. At Rising Academies, we\xe2\x80\x99re changing that, and we want your help.

About us:

We are a growing network of inspiring schools in West Africa. Our mission is to unleash the full potential of every student, equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and character to succeed in further study, work, and day-to-day life. We support more than 250,000 students across Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana through a combination of low cost private schools we manage directly, and partnership schools we manage in collaboration with governments. Independent evaluations have found that Rising students make learning gains two to three times larger than their peers in comparable schools.

We have recently closed our and won a multi-year, multi-million dollar grant to accelerate the development of our digital ed-tech solutions for low-income students across the globe. Our \xe2\x80\x98Bambai\xe2\x80\x99 suite of digital tools already includes a school information system, school observation tool, chatbot tutor, accelerated learning program and teacher coaching app. This is just the start. We want to expand our range of digital products to help improve the quality of education for millions of students around the world. If you want to make a difference to the lives of teachers, students and parents, then we are the right place for you.

About the role:

We are seeking a Senior Product Manager with exceptional abilities to lead the visioning, discovery, design, and development of Rori products that provide engaging experiences for Students, Teachers, and Administrators. The Senior Product Manager will be responsible for recognizing and articulating product problems or opportunities, defining target metrics, and creating well-formed epics or user stories for engineering teams, who can then design, build, release, and monitor technical solutions efficiently.

The Senior Product Manager will lead the team on ideation, road-mapping, and bringing to life school services and solutions. Our goal is to accelerate student outcomes through intuitive and effective solutions to maximize time spent in teaching and learning. This role requires product ownership of the product team(s) and leadership of cross-functional coordination for implementation while building trust across teams of engineers, business stakeholders, and customer-facing staff.

The Senior Product Manager will:

• Own the end-to-end product experience for a learner, teacher, school leader, and HQ staff of a school/school chain in low-connectivity settings.
• Lead the product team, working hand-in-hand with the engineering team building school services and solutions \xe2\x80\x93 primarily focused on.
• Account for the created product(s), deliver the product model, and communicate the product needs with stakeholders.
• Draft agile epics and stories, with prioritized features and specifications, while incorporating inputs from all stakeholders and ensuring release goals and commitments are understood by all affected teams.
• Partner with Impact Team & Country Managers and Engineering Leadership to ensure a manageable scope delivered on time, budget, and quality.
• Oversee the care and feeding of the platform, and ensure all aspects of the platform receive attention, including technical debt and infrastructure as well as new features.
• Partner with the product leadership and business to develop a vision, strategy, and prioritized feature backlog for digital product(s)/platform.

Location and reporting:

This is a full-time remote position. Candidates should be based in India or USA. The Senior Product Manager will report directly to Rising\xe2\x80\x99s VP of Product while maintaining communication with Rising\xe2\x80\x99s Chief Technology Officer.

Requirements

Qualifications and Experience:

• 7 to 9 years of Product Management experience leading Agile-based, software product development teams.
• At least 2 to 3 years of experience as a Senior Product Manager managing other product managers.
• Successful experience as a Product Manager, managing ed-tech products is preferred.
• Successful in leading and collaborating across teams of technologists and customer-facing teams located in different countries and time zones.
• Capable of writing requirements for API-based solutions; enjoy collaborating closely with engineering.
• Experience with product vision, design, user research, UX, product road mapping & development.
• Experience with building product/market fit.
• Experience with Asana or other project management tools.
• Experience in JIRA, Scrum.
• Experience in building products that work offline and with limited connectivity.
• Experience with PWAs and Android mobile development.
• Strong data analytics experience & using data to increase customer satisfaction & revenue.

About You:

• You have excellent verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills.
• You can communicate with technical teams and business stakeholders in a multicultural environment, as well as clearly document software for these audiences.
• You demonstrate people skills; must be able to collaborate effectively with diverse personalities and skill sets, and enjoy constructive conflict.
• You have a strong track record of professionalism and trustworthiness.
• You possess effective communication, relationship building, and teamwork skills.
• You have a strong track record of managing engineers and developers by directly reporting to them.
• You can take initiative and problem-solve when challenges arise,
• You are comfortable working with senior leadership, reporting on data and outcomes.
• You have a strong ability to keep a team on task.
• You are willing to take risks, fail, learn, give and receive feedback, and try new approaches.
• You are passionate about improving the quality of education across Africa.

Benefits

We offer a competitive salary and benefits package. We regularly benchmark our compensation against comparable businesses, social ventures and non-profits.

Rising\xe2\x80\x99s goal is to be transparent about salaries at all levels of the organisation and have a standard, global pay scale for all positions that is non-negotiable.

The benefits we offer are built to have a strong added value on our staff\xe2\x80\x99s well-being and we are excited to discuss this further with you in the process.

Rising is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to providing a work environment that is inclusive and free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions are based on individual qualifications without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, national origin, family or parental status, veteran or disability status.

Rising is committed to creating a culture within the organisation, and its schools, that recognises the importance of safeguarding children and prioritising their rights and needs. We strive to uphold international safeguarding standards, and keep the safety and well-being of our students at the heart of what we do. All Rising employees are expected to abide by the Child Protection Policy, and to have the same level of commitment to protect children from harm. Safeguarding questions are part of every interview process and all Rising employees undergo reference checks before joining the organisation.

Rising Academies