Job Description
DESCRIPTION
We are pleased to announce the subject career opportunity within Commercial (M-Pesa Africa) reporting to the senior service designer, product specification.
Role Description
M-Pesa, is a pioneering fintech business and global market leader in mobile money. From starting in 2007 as a convenient means by which the unbanked and underbanked can make digital payments, M-Pesa has now grown to offer over 50 million active customers financial services, enterprise, merchant and retail solutions. We are proud of our work in enabling the digital economy in our markets, and in driving financial inclusion.
M-Pesa Africa is now making strides to deepen and strengthen its offering to consumers and businesses in our operating countries, making it easier for them to manage their money and get more from their limited resources. Your role sits within the Big Data and Analytics function who have the mission to build and maintain a standard, strategic, single converged cloud data capability with an architecture that reduces management and maintenance costs and data duplication to maximize the value of our data assets.
Working within the scaled agile framework (SAFe), you will perform all aspects of the Product Owner role. This includes taking ownership of the team backlog, user story content and setting priorities for your Agile Team to maximise business value. You will also work within the context of a wider Product Management team, helping to define features and drive evolution of our Products based on your insights.
Key Role Responsibilities
Owns the team backlog:
• Provide content authority - builds, edits and maintains in line with product management direction
• Provides priorities to Agile team based on agreed criteria
Represents the end-user:
• Works with SME’s to understand requirements, supporting the definition of features, and co-creating user stories and other required artefacts
• Understand the core technology platform capability and collaborate with developers in the best way to meet product objectives, acts as the customer for developer questions
• Leads the system demo for their agile team after each iteration
Inputs into iteration planning session:
• Reviews and reprioritises backlog in preparation for Iteration Planning, including coordination of dependencies with other Product Owners and earliest delivery of value to our customers
• Collaborates with the team to detail stories with acceptance criteria and associated acceptance tests
• Communicates story detail and priorities, ensuring the team aligns and agrees on the final iteration plan
Understands enabler work:
• Collaborates with the Systems Architect to assist with decision-making and sequencing/prioritisation of technical enablers
Accepts stories as done:
• Validates the story meets the acceptance criteria and complies with the definition of done
Works closely with product management team:
• Works alongside the product manager to ensure features are well documented, and that business priority is understood and aligned with team activities
• Actively participates in program ceremonies, PI Planning, PO-Sync, System Demos, Backlog refinement sessions, and Inspect and Adapt Workshop
• Performs preparation activities for program increment planning, helps drive PI objectives at team level
Exhibits Lean-Agile leadership:
• Exhibits the behaviors of a Lean-Agile Leader with a Lean-Agile Mindset
• Helps the team embrace SAFe Core Values, adopt, and apply SAFe Principles, implement SAFe practices
Core competencies, knowledge, and experience
• Strong understanding of / experience with business intelligence, big data, data lake, reporting and AI concepts and technologies.
• Experience of software development lifecycle in complex, data-driven initiatives is essential, especially within agile methodologies (e.g., Scrum, SAFe)
• Experienced in leading agile feature teams to deliver both new and continuous improvements to customers
• Strong data analytical skills, able to identify solutions to complex problems.
• Business and customer focus and an appreciation of customer-led design and user experience techniques
• Ability to work proactively within a demanding environment, being a key contributor to a fast-moving product development process
• Able to communicate and influence with tact and diplomacy.
• Able to understand and explain complex technical concepts to business stakeholders
• Demonstrable numerical, analytical, and verbal skills, in particular well-developed written and verbal communication skills in English.
performance indicators
• Return on Investment
• Team Backlog Management
• Customer Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Work in Progress
• Production Issues
• Iteration slippage
QUALIFICATIONS
Apply if you have:
• Bachelor’s Degree in any relevant field
• Agile Experience including international suppliers or markets – minimum 2 years
• Relevant certified Product Owner or Business Analysis qualification, for example, SAFe Product Owner or equivalent is a must.
• Experience with business intelligence, big data, data lake, reporting, and AI concepts and technologies.
• Minimum 2 years experience in Mobile Payment or Financial Payment Service
• Contagious passion for, and commitment to, driving mobile money growth and innovation
• Demonstrated communication and relationship management experience
• Excellent problem analysis and resolution skills to support work in reactive and proactive environments
We are happy if you have:
• Experience of working within a cross-cultural team.
What you can expect from us:
• We believe in a fair and robust interview process
• We have a robust flexible total reward scheme
• Dedicated support and mentoring/coaching
• Opportunity to develop and progress – plus a solid dedication to work-life integration. It all means you’ll have everything you need to advance your career and achieve your full potential.
Note to Applicants
As part of our recruitment process, we will request the below documentation which will be required as soft copies at a later stage of the process.
• An updated CV with a confirmation of three referees- 2 must be professional and must have supervised you at some point, the other referee can be a colleague in the same professional field. If the referees are within the same organization that you are working with, you will need to confirm to us that it’s okay to contact them in writing (via email). This also includes all references within the Human Resources department.
• Scanned copy of certificate of good conduct from the CID (Less than 1 year old) - Applicable to Kenyans Only
• Scanned copy of certificate from Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) – Applicable to Kenyans Only
• Scanned copy of University Certificate
• Scanned copy of your National ID / Passport-Legal Form of Identification