Description

The context:

Across the developing world, more children than ever are in school – but they are not learning. A recent study estimated that less than 1% of school children in Sub-Saharan Africa attend a school where the teaching meets basic standards of quality. At Rising Academies, we’re changing that, and we want your help.

About us:

We are a growing network of inspiring schools in West Africa. Our mission is to unleash the full potential of every student, equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and character to succeed in further study, work, and day-to-day life. We support more than 250,000 students across Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana through a combination of low cost private schools we manage directly, and partnership schools we manage in collaboration with governments. Independent evaluations have found that Rising students make learning gains two to three times larger than their peers in comparable schools.

We have recently closed our Series A funding round and won a multi-year, multi-million dollar grant to accelerate the development of our digital ed-tech solutions for low-income students across the globe. Our ‘Bambai’ suite of digital tools already includes a school information system, school observation tool, chatbot tutor, accelerated learning program and teacher coaching app. This is just the start. We want to expand our range of digital products to help improve the quality of education for millions of students around the world. If you want to make a difference to the lives of teachers, students and parents, then we are the right place for you.

About the role:

We are seeking a highly motivated, professional, and natural leader for a full-stack Senior Engineer, reporting to the CTO at Rising Academies. The Senior Software Engineer will plan and direct development work on complex products, along with engaging various teams in design and development of solutions that are used by school leaders, teachers, students, and parents across sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. On the leadership front, the Senior Software Engineer will manage, train, and mentor a team of Engineers and Developers. By working with the other departments and teams, the Senior Engineer will lead the execution of various key products at Rising.

The Senior Software Engineer will:

  • Leverage MongoDB, Express, Angular, React, and Node to help build web applications.
  • Serve as Rising’s engineering leader and technical expert.
  • Build from scratch, and manage, a new software development team, which will require defining scope of roles and projects, allocating resourcing, and handling scale up of software products.
  • Create detailed engineering plans, processes, and procedures for engineering staff to use.
  • Hold engineering staff accountable to relevant protocols and procedures, as well as project expectations and deadlines.
  • Propose and oversee budgets and timelines for engineering projects, working hand in hand with the Product Team to ensure deadlines are realistic and always met.
  • Support Business Development teams to assess technical feasibility of proposed solutions.
  • Work with Academic and Country teams to understand requirements and create design documents as required.
  • Build new features and improve existing features using modern best-practices such as version control, continuous integration, automated tests, and daily deploys.
  • Effectively communicate and collaborate with our multicultural Development, Product, Data, and Impact teams, among others, around the globe.
  • Build software that can be easily and effectively used by groups of people facing unique challenges (remote locations, low levels of literacy, no experience with technology, etc.).
  • Spearhead various research and development initiatives to identify opportunities for new products and improve processes.
  • Design and implement scalable web services, applications, and APIs that primarily work offline or with limited connectivity.
  • Identify bottlenecks and improve software efficiency.

Requirements

Qualifications and Experience:

  • Bachelor’s degree in computer science or other related fields, master’s degree a plus
  • Minimum 10 years of professional experience in the IT/Engineering sector
  • Minimum 4 years of professional experience as a senior engineer and line manager of other engineers/ engineer teams
  • At least 5 years experience as a Full MEAN Stack Developer
  • Experience with Database integration
  • Experience with PWAs and Android mobile development
  • Experience building APIs
  • Experience in JIRA, Scrum
  • Experience in cloud, data/cyber security, AI, and chatbot development
  • Experience in building products that work offline and with limited connectivity
  • Experience with CommCare, WhatsApp Bots, Enterprise Bot Manager, Turn.io, Twilio, Google Dialogue Flow, Google Data Studio a plus
  • Experience with biometrics solutions

About You:

  • You have a strong track record of professionalism and trustworthiness
  • You possess effective communication, relationship building, and teamwork skills
  • You have a strong track record of managing engineers and developers who have directly reported to you
  • You can take initiative and problem-solve when challenges arise, communicating with stakeholders proactively
  • You are comfortable working with senior leadership and proactively reporting on data and outcomes
  • You have a strong ability to keep a team on task
  • You are willing to take risks, fail, learn, give and receive feedback, and try new approaches
  • You are passionate about improving the quality of education across Africa

Benefits

We offer a competitive salary and benefits package. We regularly benchmark our compensation against comparable businesses, social ventures and non-profits.

Rising’s goal is to be transparent about salaries at all levels of the organization and have a standard, global pay scale for all positions.

The benefits we offer are built to have a strong added value on our staff’s well-being and we look forward to discussing more details about the benefits for this role over the course of the process.

Rising is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to providing a work environment that is inclusive and free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions are based on individual qualifications without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, national origin, family or parental status, veteran or disability status.

Rising is committed to creating a culture within the organisation, and its schools, that recognises the importance of safeguarding children and prioritising their rights and needs. We strive to uphold international safeguarding standards, and keep the safety and well-being of our students at the heart of what we do. All Rising employees are expected to abide by the Child Protection Policy, and to have the same level of commitment to protect children from harm. Safeguarding questions are part of every interview process and all Rising employees undergo reference checks before joining the organisation.