Director of Technical Program Management

GiveDirectly

Lagos, Nigeria

4d ago

About GiveDirectly

GiveDirectly (GD) aims to reshape international giving and millions of lives by providing cash grants directly to the world’s poorest.

The Brookings Institution estimates that $70B of cash transfers would be required to eliminate the poverty gap; the aid sector currently spends $135B each year, much of it on evidence-free interventions.

GiveDirectly wants to change that, establishing cash transfers as a benchmark for foreign aid as the index fund is a benchmark for the financial industry and in the process accelerating the end of extreme poverty.

GD has raised over $700M since launching in 2011, delivered cash to more than 1 million people, and launched offices in 10 countries.

We’ve also supported large-scale, experimental research that indicates strong recipient impact of our programs. As a result, GD has been celebrated as one of the most innovative non-profit companies by Fast Company, while the growing cash transfer movement (and GD’s leading role within it) have been featured in the New York Times Magazine, This American Life, Foreign Affairs, and The Economist.

We’re looking for exceptional talent to grow our collaborative, diverse team. Joining GiveDirectly provides the opportunity to work alongside individuals who come from 21 different countries and speak 69 different languages.

We’re actively working toward an equitable and inclusive environment for all team members, and seek candidates who will bring diverse perspectives and experiences to our organization.

We recruit from organizations across all industries : our team has hailed from sectors including start-ups, government, consultancies, investment banks, and nonprofits.

Across our global offices, our culture is candid, analytical, non-hierarchical, and fast-paced. We value ability, adaptability, and willingness to learn.

We offer competitive salary and benefits, as well as performance-based bonuses.

About this role

Technology will play a critical role in enabling the next generation of cash delivery operations : from identifying recipients without needing to knock on doors, to best-in-class fraud detection.

We are looking for a director to lead the team through rapid growth and drive a strategic technology roadmap that will enable cash delivery at scale, ultimately enabling GiveDirectly to send more cash to people experiencing extreme poverty.

Our technical program management team partners with our field operations teams to design and operationalize new cash delivery programs by implementing and managing the technology used for identifying, enrolling and paying recipients.

It also partners with our engineering team to scope and define our roadmap for new software products to solve key problems in cash delivery.

It’s part technical implementation systems design, data collection, cleaning, modeling, and analysis and part technical project management requirements definition, stakeholder management, timeline management, problem solving, and prioritization.

You are a systems thinker who can balance long term investments against a host of day-to-day field challenges, both technical and operational.

You have the technical expertise to guide engineering roadmap and drive vendor decisions to continue adding new capabilities to our stack.

You can drive prioritization conversations among technical and non-technical stakeholders to negotiate competing priorities and fuel progress toward organizational goals.

You are excited to grow a team, from hiring to coaching to figuring out systems and practices that can deliver high quality while scaling rapidly.

This role is fully remote but must overlap with an East Africa timezone by at least 4 hours.

Reports to : Director of Field Technology

What you’ll do :

Lead the technology build out for all new cash delivery program launches, helping GiveDirectly reach more people across more geographies

Manage managers, each of whom manage a team of technical program managers and data associates

Develop and grow the team through rapid scaling, including building norms and culture to enable the team to operate efficiently and maintain quality with rapid growth

Build a culture of system design, data modeling, and project management best practices

Partner with the engineering team to define software products to solve new challenges in cash delivery

Serve as strategic decision maker on vendor selection for off-the-shelf tools to expand tech stack capability

Drive roadmap discussions with teams across the organization, including operations, research, finance, and fundraising, including working across stakeholders to shift from a service mindset to product mindset

Ensure the team follows best practices for data privacy and security, to ensure protection of recipient data

What you’ll bring :

8+ years of experience in a similar field (e.g., technical product / program management, software engineering, systems engineering, data analytics)

4+ years of people management experience with proven leadership ability in rapidly scaling high performing teams

Demonstrated track record of delivering tech products from ambiguity to delivery

Passion for both building process and structure to enable scale & jumping into open-ended problems

Experience building a team culture of structured problem solving, drive to fix root causes, and high attention to detail

Proven ability to manage the urgent alongside driving persistent, continual improvement and quality

Strong systems thinking and ability to weigh short and long term tradeoffs of technical design decisions

Strong ability to communicate complex technical concepts effectively across cross-functional teams and senior business and technical stakeholders

Knowledge of data security and privacy best practices

Experience writing code, such as Python, R, Java, etc.

Alignment with GiveDirectly Values and active demonstration of our core competencies : emotional intelligence, problem solving, project management, follow-through, and fostering inclusivity.

We welcome and strongly encourage applications from candidates who have personal or professional experience in the low-income and / or historically marginalized communities that we serve.

Compensation

At GiveDirectly, we strive to pay our employees generously and equitably. We use an accredited third party salary aggregator to ensure that staff’s total compensation package (base compensation + bonus) falls within the 75th percentile of similar roles, at similar organizations.

We also have a no negotiation policy to ensure we are paying staff equitably across roles.

The United States base salary for this role is $130,000, and $100,000 for Kenya.

This role is fully remote, so if you are not based in the US, we will share an estimated salary benchmark for the country you are based in during the hiring process.

Why work at GiveDirectly?

At GiveDirectly, we work to ensure that you have everything you need to excel in your role and on your team, including :

A positive and supportive team with opportunities for advancement

A demonstrated commitment to helping all staff develop and grow

A competitive salary

A robust health benefits plan (exact details will vary by country)

Unlimited PTO (that we encourage staff to take!)

Desk allowance and flexible work location

Read more about our ongoing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts here and about our decision to move our central support teams to remote first here .

GD is committed to observing all local, national and international laws that protect children, vulnerable adults, and basic human rights of all.

GD is committed to a policy of zero tolerance for sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment (SEAH) and expects anyone who works for GD to uphold the protection and safeguarding of our recipients as a priority.

BI-Remote

Report this job

Thank you for reporting this job!

Your feedback will help us improve the quality of our services.