Digital Product Manager in social startup - remote

As a product manager you will be responsible for managing and improving our ERP to meet business needs as the company grows and becomes more analytical and data driven. You will report directly to one of the co-founders and manage the rest of the IT team. 

Our ERP is built on Salesforce and combines off the shelf functionality with extensive customisation. Our vision is that our ERP will cover all the business data needs now and in the future. Right now, we can manage data from clients, their loans, their payments, the products they buy, and our inventory. It connects with several other applications, most importantly a third-party app to manage data collection from the field and inventory, along with several mobile money service providers and SMS providers in (for now) Kenya and Uganda through API integrations. Our ERP is used by c.150+ internal users who are mostly mobile-first users (in a low connectivity world).

·         Ultimate Responsibility for IT system working well - Take responsibility for the upkeep and design of our Salesforce system to ensure that new features are developed in a way that doesn’t compromise the data structure and fit together well

·         Act as the connection between the business and IT teams - Provide the business teams with estimates on development work required for business changes, sit in on business discussions to provide guidance on what is already possible, what could be possible and by when

·         Training and tech support for advanced users - Equip the Bidhaa Sasa team with the tools and training needed to get the most out of the Salesforce system, e.g. building reports, training users on how the system works and how to extract information

·         Manage the IT team - Manage the IT team (a Salesforce Developer in charge of adding new features and a Salesforce Administrator responsible for resolving user issues and training field teams)

·         Manage relationships with external parties - Be the primary point of contact between the business and our technology providers (Salesforce, Taroworks and Africa’s Talking), manage acquisition of licenses, overseeing system upgrades, staying abreast of system changes and escalating support issues

·         Scope and design new features - Scope out all development work with the aim of providing sufficient task detail for the developers to implement (this may include some system design work)

·         Develop features and resolve bugs - When required step in to provide additional technical support when issues are escalated by other team members (both within and outside the IT team), and development new features when timelines require it.

·         Source and manage external developers as required - Manage relationships with external developers, including sourcing additional capacity through our existing implementation partners or finding support through freelancing sites e.g. Upwork.

·         Test development work - Test all development work from internal and external developers, providing constructive feedback, and ensuring the features meet the brief

·         Manage development timelines - Maintain the development backlog, including creating issues and collating feedback from users, prioritising when new features are developed, assigning them to a developer, and communicating progress to the founders.

·         Documentation - Organise and document feature releases to ensure documentation is kept up to date, and system changes are introduced with minimal disruption

Key requirements and deliverables of the role:

·         Can read code!      
.         Experience in building, shipping, and maintaining complex technical products

·         Strong preference for experience with Salesforce

·         If you don’t have Salesforce experience then must have experience managing products using a wide range of technologies

·         Quick learner - must be able to absorb lots of information

·         Problem solver - can identify solutions to complex problems and is comfortable experimenting with new approaches until a solution is found

·         Organised - can manage lots of competing roles and responsibilities and prioritise accordingly

·         Clear communicator - can communicate complex technical ideas simply to non-technical audiences