Technical Manager – Digital Economy Practice

Position: Technical Manager – Digital Economy Practice Department: Programs

Employment Type: 2-year Contract, Renewable

Reports to: Lead – Digital Economy Practice

ABOUT THE INNOVATION VILLAGE

The Innovation Village is Uganda’s launchpad for leading innovators and entrepre- neurs. We are building an entire ecosystem of entrepreneurs and innovators in what is growing to become a business solutions provider for our biggest challenges or opportunities. From helping entrepreneurs launch and grow high-impact ventures to attracting regional and global opportunities, our ecosystem approach converges multiple partners including public, private, academia, research, and civil society as one force for good.

ABOUT THE DIGITAL ECONOMY PROGRAM

In partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and Mastercard Inc, The Innovation Village is launching the Digital Economy Program to transform the digital economy in Uganda. Digital transformation is rapidly re-shaping our global economy, permeating every sector and aspect of daily life – changing the way we learn, work, trade, socialize, and access public and private services and information. With this trend in technology, a new digital economy is emerging as a critical enabler for accelerating opportunities for young people, women, and small businesses. We strongly believe that the digital economy can play a significant role in boosting job creation in Uganda in the next decade by enabling growth, innovation, efficiency, and expansion of Uganda’s markets into new frontiers and creating the new future of work for young people.

As an organization, we have invested in building an ecosystem for innovators and entrepreneurs to launch and scale their ventures. To ensure they are at the forefront of the current global digital transformation we are deepening our work in the sector by ensuring we have the right team and resources to support entrepreneurs. Our work will involve ensuring Ugandan entrepreneurs and the ecosystem have access to digital infrastructure, tools, and technical support to enable effective participation in the digital economy to transform and drive growth in all sectors.

Reporting to the Lead – Digital Economy Practice, the Technical Manager will be responsible and accountable for leading the technical components of the Digital Economy Program. The Technical Manager is the first point of contact across stake- holders in the program including the early stage, growth stage, intermediaries and technology providers including Virtusa, Mastercard Inc, and other technology service providers that will be onboarded under the Digital Economy program. The Technical Manager will understand the vast technology infrastructure needs and requirements of the different entrepreneurs and align those with the technology infrastructure partners from time to time.

You’ll have a strong technical background to identify and solve problems whilst sup- porting and driving engineers and designers to execute the roadmap in line with the program. The successful candidate should have the ability to effectively communicate across the business to both technical and non-technical stakeholders about changes to the product and the rationale for the prioritisation. Additionally, the Technical Manager will provide communication to the company and to customers with product demos, presentations, and changelogs to clearly explain developments within the product.

KEY RESULT AREAS:

1. Technical Leadership and Strategy

• Liaise with the Programs Lead to develop and drive the overall program technology strategy and design.
• Create and maintain strong technical acumen of the platform & inter-workings to support front line representatives the tech community building on the infrastructure.
• Evaluate, respond, and resolve complex inbound technical escalations / inquiries from the community.
• Identify process and procedural enhancements; recommend and implement changes to ensure best developer experience.
• Serve as the overall contact person for the day-to-day tech operations of the Digital Economy Program, both internally at The Innovation Village, and across the ecosystem.

2. Tech Community Management

• Build a community of tech entrepreneurs at various stages of growth serving their infrastructure needs in liaison with technology partners including Virtusa and Mastercard Inc among others.
• Support growth and development of a selection of growth stage companies into viable commercial partnership with our technology partners namely Mastercard Inc
• Analyse support issue trends and work with relevant stakeholders and various departments on mitigation

3. Technical Stakeholder Management and Engagement.

• Work with technology infrastructure partners including Virtusa and Mastercard Inc to align scope of work, needs for the ecosystem in line with the program. Understand partners’ technical business objectives/impact and for timely resolution of issues and to ensure program success.

4. Program Technology Operations

• Oversee the technology Program implementation, by planning, monitoring, and analysing key metrics for the day-to-day performance of the program operations to ensure efficient and timely completion of tasks and other contractual obligations.
• Promote excellence and quality in programming through people-centred, systems thinking, and evidence-based approaches to both design and implementation.
• Provide technical and problem-solving support, and lead issue management across the program portfolio.
• Manage technical relationships / agreements with external partners/ vendors across the program period.

ABOUT YOU

• Experience At least 10-years’ work experience with a minimum 5-years in a technology project leader- ship role involving design, implementation, and management of results Demonstrated experience managing and scaling technology platforms targeted at the base of pyramid segments e.g., Agriculture, Micro Retail, Humanitarian etc. Experience and proficiency with cloud technologies (IaaS, PaaS, serverless technology, NoSQL databases), microservice design, near real-time, scalable fault tolerant platform design, API design, and distributed systems operations in a DevOps model Demonstrate experience building organizational relationships, partnering with, and influencing executive leadership while commanding the respect of the individual engineers across the organization Proven track record of data driven decision making and applying continuous improvement methodologies across teams Comprehensive experience in agile delivery methodologies (scrum, Kanban, etc.) and CI/CD Can communicate to executives, peers, and staff with impact, eloquence, and authenticity Demonstrate experience as a people manager with the ability to attract, recruit, and develop technical talent.
• At least 10-years’ work experience with a minimum 5-years in a technology project leadership role involving design, implementation, and management of results.
• Demonstrated experience managing and scaling technology platforms targeted at the base of pyramid segments e.g., Agriculture, Micro Retail, Humanitarian etc.
• Experience and proficiency with cloud technologies (IaaS, PaaS, serverless technology, NoSQL databases), microservice design, near real-time, scalable fault tolerant platform design, API design, and distributed systems operations in a DevOps model.
• Demonstrate experience building organizational relationships, partnering with, and influencing executive leadership while commanding the respect of the individual engineers across the organization.
• Proven track record of data driven decision making and applying continuous improvement methodologies across teams.
• Comprehensive experience in agile delivery methodologies (scrum, Kanban, etc.) and CI/CD.
• Can communicate to executives, peers, and staff with impact, eloquence, and authenticity.
• Demonstrate experience as a people manager with the ability to attract, recruit, and develop technical talent.

Academic Qualifications

Master’s Degree in Business Management or Information Technology Certification in Project Management is an added advantage.

Core Competencies

1. Stakeholder Management.
2. Ownership and initiative
3. Innovation and agility
4. Drive for results
5. Thinking and problem analysis 6. Resilience and resourcefulness 7. Communication and influencing

HOW TO APPLY

If interested, please use the following link https://smrtr.io/7MWX8 to submit your application by 28th January 2022.