Senior Technical Program Manager 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.

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

Overview:

We believe 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 a modern payments infrastructure that gets dollars in recipients’ hands faster and more scalably. We are seeking a senior technical program manager responsible for leading a team that designs and implements our data systems for enrolling and paying recipients.

You will lead a portfolio of tech builds to launch new programs: working with our operations team to define and implement program requirements for data collection and cash delivery, project managing the implementation across multiple stakeholders from different cultural backgrounds, and analyzing, structuring, and acting on program data. You are a systems thinker who is comfortable assessing risks and weighing short- and long-term tradeoffs. You love systematically picking apart complex issues to get to the root cause and drive fixes. You have the technical expertise to both get your hands dirty writing database queries and to make well reasoned decisions on high-level problems that impact multiple workstreams. 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.

Responsibilities:

• Partner with our field operations team to scope and operationalize new cash delivery program launches, helping GiveDirectly to reach more people across more geographies
• Lead a team of data coordinators, data associates, and technical program managers who build, manage, and implement the technology used to deliver those program launches, from surveys for enrolling recipients to the data model used to store data about payments in Salesforce (our central recipient data store), including being hands-on with implementation where needed
• Prioritize among a portfolio of project launches and negotiate timelines across functions to manage capacity within the team
• Scope and assess potential new projects from a technical perspective to inform strategic direction
• Build a strong team culture rooted in GiveDirectly’s values
• Drive the rapid growth of our team, which has doubled each of the last three years, including recruitment, onboarding, and designing systems and practices to scale 
• Design and implement cross-cutting systems improvements to improve efficiency, scale, and/or recipient experience
• Debug and resolve issues across multiple layers of our technology stack, including Salesforce and our offline data collection app
• Develop and manage reporting of key metrics tracking field operations and payments

We’re looking for candidates with:

• Fluency in English
• At least 5 years of professional experience (we welcome a range of skill sets and backgrounds; related fields could include product management, data analytics, software engineering, project management, program management, international development, or management consulting)
• Experience owning technical decisions when there isn’t a predefined “playbook”: evaluating novel technologies, designs, and risks
• Experience scaling and leading a team and building a team practice of structured problem solving, drive to fix root causes, and high attention to detail
• Experience writing code to manipulate data such as Python or R
• Deep comfort with Microsoft Excel/Google Sheets
• Experience managing timelines, operational risk, stakeholders, and complex deliverables across multiple workstreams
• Ability to collaborate inclusively with stakeholders across varied social, national, and cultural backgrounds, including communicating technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Bonus but not required: experience working with relational databases (e.g. SQL)
• Bonus but not required: expertise in data visualization
• Bonus but not required: fluency in Arabic, Spanish, French, Swahili, Portuguese, or Kinyarwanda
• Exceptional 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.

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 monthly benefits allowance that covers Health, Dental, and Vision monthly premiums
• 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.**