Product Relations Manager

Job Description

Product Relations Manager

Our mission

We’re making Africa the first cashless continent.

In 2017, over half the population in Sub-Saharan Africa had no bank account. That’s for good reason—the fees are too high, the closest branch can be miles away, and nobody takes cards. Without access to financial institutions, people are forced to keep their savings under the mattress. Small business owners rely on lenders who charge extortionate rates. Parents spend hours waiting in line to pay school fees in cash.

We’re solving this by building financial services that just work: no account fees, instantly available, and accepted everywhere. In places where electricity, water and roads don’t always work, you can still send money with Wave. In 2017, we launched a mobile app in Senegal for cash deposit, withdrawal, and peer-to-peer and business payments. Now, we have millions of users across six countries and are growing fast.

Our goal is to make Africa the first cashless continent and that’s where you come in…

How you’ll help us achieve it

We are looking for a Product Relations Manager who will act as a liaison between our product teams and our clients. You will work closely with our partners to understand their technical requirements and translate them back to our product teams and vice versa.

In this role, you’ll

• Support the strategic objectives and interests of Wave’s product teams and further these objectives through partnerships.
• Play an influential leading role in developing Wave’s ecosystem partners, including but not limited to partner evaluation and selection prior to contract signature with the business development team, digital payments, and API services development scope.
• Serve as a partner advocate inside Wave to drive requirements and product direction, working hand-in-hand with product and engineering teams to meet Wave and partners’ goals of successfully launching robust partner product platforms.
• Manage the communication, and document collection/analysis during the integration of our strategic partners, as it relates to various product teams.
• Gather partner feedback and requests, evaluate and work with product and eng that will help PMs to prioritize as needed.
• Contribute to growing our partnerships over time by nurturing long-term relationships, fostering a deep understanding of partner objectives and values, and being laser-focused on KPIs.
• Work with Bizdev and partners to ideate on or explore product integrations and/or develop new business models, securing buy-in from cross-functional stakeholders and leadership.
• Lead discussions amongst cross-functional teams within Wave, including product, engineering, marketing, support, legal, and finance, to execute various projects/products that impact the success of Wave and its partners.

Key details

• Location: You’ll work from our office in Senegal and may travel to field locations.
• Work authorization in Senegal is required.
• This is a permanent position.
• Our salaries are competitive and calculated using a transparent formula. We run performance reviews twice a year and award bonuses to strong performers who have been with the company for more than 6 months.
• We offer generous health insurance for yourself and your dependents.
• We support working parents – we offer 26 weeks of parental leave for mothers and 4 weeks for fathers, in addition to subsidized child care when they return to work.
• Airtime reimbursement.
• Free food and a beautiful office space.

Requirements

• Fluency in French and English.
• A bachelor’s degree in engineering, IT, project management, or a related discipline.
• 5+ years experience in product & engineering teams at a global organization in technology sectors or mobile money operations.
• Experience preparing presentations and documents in French/English for external partners.

You might be a good fit if you

• Have a strong track record in building country-level and multi-country partnerships in Africa.
• Find slow-moving processes or partners frustrating, but you’re inclined to lean into the problem and push however you can rather than accept a slow pace.
• Are a clear and proactive communicator.
• Can independently follow through on tasks and manage priorities effectively.
• Know how to navigate working with senior partners and stakeholders by spotting and seizing mutually beneficial opportunities.
• Are intellectually curious, creative in the way you go about tackling problems, and embrace failure as a means to spark innovation and growth.
• Demonstrate tenacity and a willingness to go the distance to get something done.
• Are well organized and can manage competing priorities.
• Can quickly learn regulatory requirements and prioritize paths to meeting them.
• Are enthusiastic about Wave’s mission and excited to do what needs to be done to achieve it.

Our team

• We have a rapidly growing in-country team in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, and Uganda, plus remote team members spread across the world.
• We’re deeply passionate about our mission of bringing radically affordable financial services to the people who need them most.
• We foster autonomy for our employees. You’ll own your projects at every stage, from understanding the problem to monitoring your solution in production.
• We raised the largest Series A in Africa in 2021. Our world-class investors, include Founders Fund, Sequoia Heritage, Stripe, Ribbit Capital, Y Combinator, and Partech Africa.
• In 2023, we were on Y Combinator’s top 50 companies by revenue.

How to apply

Fill out the form below, and upload a resume in English and a cover letter describing your interest in Wave and the role.

We review applications frequently and recommend that you apply to the role that most closely aligns with your skills, experience and career goals.

Wave is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.