Product Associate - Skill-Up (Out Of School Youth)

Who We Are! 

🌍 Africa has the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population. By 2035, the continent is poised to contribute more young people to the global workforce each year than the rest of the world combined. 

At Educate! we're obsessed with impact. We leverage iterative learning to build highly scalable youth employment solutions aimed at unlocking the potential of the world’s youngest continent. 

Educate! prepares youth in Africa to learn, earn and thrive in today’s economy by: 

1. Introducing an employment-focused school subject into secondary and 
2. Delivering livelihood boot camps for out-of-school youth, with a focus on marginalized rural girls and young women.

To date, more than 500,000 youth have been meaningfully impacted across Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania, and along the way, Educate! has become the largest youth employment and skills provider in East Africa.

Educate! is a team of over 300 largely African staff and 300 volunteer youth mentors. We prioritize building an engaging, fulfilling and growth oriented work environment. 50% of our top 30 leaders have been with us for over 5 years, 10+ alumni have started their own organizations, and 6 current or former team members were Acumen Fund East Africa fellows. 

We have been backed by top foundations such as Imaginable Futures, Livelihood Impact Fund,  Jack Dorsey’s #startsmall, CIFF and Echidna Giving. Educate! won a 2018 Klaus J. Jacobs Prize and a 2015 WISE Award, and has been highlighted by the World Bank’s S4YE's Impact Portfolio, an Al Jazeera documentary, BBC, The Brookings Institution as one of 14 case studies on scaling education, and the Gates Foundation as a Goalkeepers Accelerator. In 2022, we received a catalytic investment from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott to scale our systems change work.

Educate!'s long-term vision is to design solutions that measurably impact millions of youth across Africa each year.

Good to note: To Our Awesome Applicants! 🚀💫

We know that incredible candidates sometimes hesitate to apply if they don’t meet every requirement. If this role excites you, we encourage you to apply! 

We’re looking for passionate individuals who believe in our mission and can bring unique perspectives to our team—not just those who check every box. We value diversity and strongly encourage women and individuals from all backgrounds to apply.

Position Overview 

At Educate!, the Product Associate will play a crucial role in driving product experimentation, scalability, and continuous improvement to meet the needs of Africa’s youth. This role combines hands-on experimentation, ensuring that all product development efforts align with Educate!’s long-term mission of transforming education for millions of youth across Africa. The successful candidate will collaborate with cross-functional teams to lead user-centered validations, develop frameworks for experimentation, and optimize product development processes.

The Product Associate will be responsible for ensuring that our products are scalable and replicable, with a focus on using data-driven insights to guide decisions and inform product improvements. By supporting product leaders in building high-impact, user-driven products, this role is central to Educate!’s mission of creating educational solutions that drive meaningful change.

The ideal candidate will need to be able to:

• Customer-Centric Approach: Bring a deep understanding of user needs, leveraging feedback and insights to continuously refine product offerings. They should prioritize user-centered design principles and ensure products align with the diverse needs of the end users.

• Collaborative and Team-Oriented: This role requires seamless collaboration with product managers, designers, programs implementation and other key stakeholders. The candidate must excel in fostering a positive, cross-functional work environment and driving alignment across teams.

• Clear Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills are essential. The candidate must effectively translate complex product ideas and insights into actionable plans for both technical and non-technical teams.

• Problem-Solving & Innovation: The ideal candidate should demonstrate a proactive problem-solving mindset, addressing challenges creatively while maintaining a strong focus on product priorities. They must be skilled at identifying obstacles and devising solutions that ensure efficient product iterations.

• Analytical and Data-Driven: The candidate should possess an analytical mindset, comfortable with interpreting data to derive actionable insights. Familiarity with data analytics tools and experimentation methodologies is crucial for informed decision-making.

Key Performance Objectives

The role involves supporting day-to-day product operational tasks while supporting strategic initiatives within the impact unit team. Focused on optimizing product processes and enabling the team to work efficiently, ensuring smooth scaling and continuous improvement.

Experimentation & Scalability

• Design and Implement Scalable Experiments: Lead the execution of experiments within the product team to validate hypotheses and improve the user experience, ensuring alignment with product goals.
• Utilize the Sandbox Process: Drive the use of the sandbox environment within the team to prototype, test, and validate product features in a controlled, low-risk setting.
• Define Metrics and KPIs: Collaborate with the product team to establish clear metrics and KPIs for each experiment, ensuring they align with both immediate and long-term product objectives.
• Document and Share Insights: Maintain comprehensive documentation of experiment outcomes and share key learnings within the team to continuously optimize future experimentation efforts.

User-Centered Validation

• Lead User Research: Conduct usability testing, user interviews, and other research efforts to validate product assumptions and gain insights into user needs.
• Synthesize Feedback: Analyze user feedback and data to provide actionable insights that inform product improvements.
• Integrate Insights Continuously: Ensure that user insights are regularly incorporated into the product development process to drive ongoing refinement.
• Advocate for Users: Champion user-centered design solutions in product discussions and iterations to ensure the product aligns with user needs.

Frameworks & Tools for Experimentation

• Co-Create Experimentation Frameworks: Collaborate with the product team to adapt and apply standardized experimentation frameworks (e.g., A/B testing, multivariate testing, and rapid prototyping) to fit the specific needs of the product.
• Provide Tools and Resources: Leverage the tools, resources, and processes rolled out by the product operations function to streamline experimentation within the product team.
• Enhance Methodologies: Work with the product team to continuously assess and refine experimentation methodologies, ensuring they are aligned with best practices and the product’s unique requirements.
• Support Team Training: Co-create training and resources with the product operations function to empower the product team in utilizing experimentation frameworks effectively for product development.

Driving Data-Driven Insights and Operationalizing Frontline Feedback

• Monitor KPIs and Provide Actionable Insights: Support the tracking and analysis of key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess product efficiency, quality, and impact, ensuring actionable insights are delivered to guide continuous improvement within the product team.
• Collaborate on Feedback Integration: Work with the product team to establish efficient processes for transforming frontline feedback into actionable backlog items, ensuring this feedback is prioritized and integrated into future product iterations.
• Support Feature Prioritization: Assist in prioritizing and implementing frontline-driven features, collaborating with the team to streamline the feedback loop and reduce the cycle time from insight capture to feature release.
• Facilitate Continuous Improvement: Participate in regular retrospectives and reviews to optimize the integration of feedback into product development, helping to refine experimentation practices and ensure that product improvements are consistently aligned with user needs.

Qualifications and Profile

• Experience: 1-2 years in product management, operations, or related fields with a focus on experimentation and user-centered design.
• Skills: Analytical mindset, strong communication abilities, and a solid understanding of experimentation tools and methodologies.
• Attributes: Collaborative, data-driven, and proactive, with a passion for driving user-focused product improvements.
• Dynamic experience is highly preferred, and can operate well in complex and fast-changing environments.
• The ideal candidate has worked in a very early-stage startup trying to achieve product-market fit or led a new product or program within a larger organization.
• Experience working with diverse stakeholders and managing many priorities
• Passion for Educate!’s mission is a must, but past work in education or youth development is not required. We value diverse perspectives and encourage applications from people with various backgrounds. Background working with youth in the informal sector would be an asset.
• Fits our Five Cultural Tenets (see What is Educate! About? below); Learn more by looking at  Educate!’s culture deck here

What We Offer 💼

• A vibrant, mission-driven environment with a supportive and fun team.
• Flexibility— Hybrid work environment to empower you in your mode of work. 
• Competitive salary based on experience.
• Healthcare coverage for you and your dependents, work laptop, Internet & call stipend
• Learning & growth opportunities
• This is a Fixed term  contract with a possibility of extension based on performance

Application Process: Rolling basis, interviews happening soon!

Our Culture & Tenets(Values) 🌱

We’re ambitious. Are you? Educate! is growing fast, so new opportunities are opening up and expanding all the time. We’re inspired by people with drive, and we love to help them reach their full potential. We expect everyone at Educate! to contribute above and beyond their job description, grow their skills, and advance their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey of their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey. 

1. We put Youth First, Impact-Obsessed - We are purpose-driven, focused on impact, and prioritize what truly matters. We listen to youth, design our efforts around their needs, and ensure every dollar creates transformative experiences they value.
2. We Exceed Expectations - We take pride in going above and beyond to achieve the best results—proactively identifying problems and seeking solutions without waiting or stopping at what's requested.
3. We Are Always Learning - We are committed to seeking and applying new knowledge and ideas. We stay open-minded and continuously try new things, experiment, grow, and improve. We invest in learning for ourselves and our teams.
4. We are One Team, Many Views - We value all individuals, believe diverse ideas and open dialogue drive excellence, foster a supportive and respectful environment where everyone can freely express themselves. We work as one team and prioritize the organization's mission over personal or team interests.
5. We have the Startup Mindset - We innovate relentlessly to grow our impact, we never think “we have arrived” or “we’re done.”We constantly challenge the status quo, embrace change, and move quickly toward our vision. Unafraid of failure, we question anything that hinders progress.

Every person at Educate! — from interns to the executive director — is evaluated by how they live up to these five cultural tenets. They are at the core of how we achieve our mission and why we work as well as we do.  Educate is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all who interact in our community. In creating this environment, we encourage people from a variety of cultures, backgrounds and life experiences to join our diverse team. 

We’re committed to ensuring all candidates are screened for child and youth safety. As part of the process, you’ll need to provide a Certificate of Good Conduct. Educate! reserves the right to withdraw employment offers if any risks to youth are identified.