Director of Technical Program Management at 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.

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

Location: This role is fully remote, but based in Africa.

Overview:

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

Level: Director

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, including managing managers, 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 $140,000, and $115,000 for Kenya
• 15% bonus index
• This role is fully remote, so if you are not based in the US or Kenya, 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.

About the hiring process

Format: The hiring process follows the same general outline for all open roles:

First interview (30 mins)
Take home skills assignment (~2 hours)
Second interview (1 hour)*
Third interview (1 hour)*
Final interview (1 hour)
Reference checks (30 mins each)

*For some roles, second & third interviews are combined into a panel interview. If there are adjustments or variations on this process, those changes will be communicated during the first interview.

Venue: We conduct interviews over Google Meet with camera on (unless communicated otherwise).

Accessibility: Closed captioning is available during all Google Meet interviews, and interviewers will also post interview questions in the chat box throughout the call. If you need assistance accessing either of these features, please let your interviewer know at the start of your interview! 

We’re committed to running an inclusive and accessible application process for all of our open roles. If there are questions or concerns you have about the accessibility of our hiring process, we warmly invite you to reach out to [email protected]. 

**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.**