Product Operations Lead

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

Educate!, the Product Operations Lead will be instrumental in scaling data-driven decision-making, experimentation, and process optimization across product and design teams to better serve Africa’s youth. This role bridges strategic leadership and operational execution, ensuring alignment with Educate!’s long-term vision of creating high-impact educational products.

The successful candidate will drive cross-functional collaboration, enhance data usability, standardize product development processes, and upskill teams to foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation. By supporting product leaders in building value-driven, impactful solutions, this role will be central to Educate!’s mission of transforming education for millions of young people across Africa.

What You Will Do:

Aligning Functional Strategy with Organizational Goals 

• Co-create annual and quarterly strategy for the product operations function with the Global Director of Design and Product Operations 
• Manage the product ops strategic roadmap, all org product health status and share reports with prioritized action steps for each product to enhance product experimentation, data-driven decision-making, and operational efficiency – aligning to Educate!’s vision to impact millions of youth.
• Contribute to the design and co-facilitate product retreats and trainings as part of the roll out of strategic initiatives such as performance standards, typologies, ways of working, investment stages or processes etc. 
• Drive Change Management & Post-Transition Support – Monitor and flag risks, bottlenecks and opportunities for change. Provide ongoing post-transition support, including guidance, resources, and feedback loops to ensure teams successfully integrate into the new model and continuously refine their ways of working. E.g. People Operations Director and Executive team on team topology changes.

Building Data Usability & Dashboard Optimization

• Support product leaders and performance metrics team in the development and adoption of product dashboard and flexible data tools guiding real-time data driven decision making. This will involve working closely with the Performance Metrics Team to define data structures, reporting requirements, and visualization strategies that enhance usability.
• Support product leaders to define and standardize core product metrics while allowing for flexibility across different product lines. This includes working with stakeholders to determine which KPIs best reflect product success and ensuring consistency in how metrics are tracked and reported.
• Work closely with the Performance Metrics Team to enhance build the performance metric dashboard, delivery model dashboard, data visualization, and analysis, ensuring that insights are accessible, user-friendly, and actionable. This includes refining dashboard interfaces, improving filtering options, and providing training to ensure teams can effectively interpret data.
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration to ensure that data usability improvements directly support product development, experimentation, and learning cycles. This will include hosting working sessions with product and data teams to align on priorities, troubleshoot challenges, and continuously refine data workflows.
• Collaborate with impact unit teams, performance metrics and evaluation to elevate analytical insights required to inform next stage product strategy and product and delivery model adaptations.

Empowering Teams and Building Capacity

• Mentor and Develop Product Strategists: Identify skill gaps and implement targeted training programs to enhance strategic thinking, execution, and team capabilities.
• Strengthen Talent Pipelines: Fast-track high-potential team members and address hiring challenges in a rapidly scaling organization, ensuring a robust talent pipeline.
• Collaborate on Talent Recruitment Strategies: Work with the Talent team to revise hiring pipelines for Product Associates and Strategists, including crafting comprehensive and accurate job descriptions.
• Foster Collaboration and Inclusivity: Establish clear pathways for communication and role clarity among strategists, designers, and trainers, promoting alignment, inclusivity, and team cohesion.
• Develop and roll out onboarding programs and continuous professional development initiatives for product leaders in E!. 
• Collaborate with line managers to ensure alignment on performance standards, coaching plans etcetera.

Optimize Workflows

• Identify and implement process and tooling improvements that enhance efficiency across product teams, ensuring that experimentation, backlog management, and product documentation workflows are streamlined and well-integrated. This will involve evaluating existing tools, identifying gaps, and implementing improvements that reduce friction.
• Pioneer AI adaptation in product development workflows, including but not limited to, experiment design, rapid prototyping, work flow agents etc. 
• Optimize product development workflows by identifying and removing bottlenecks in discovery, experimentation, and execution processes. This includes ensuring seamless handoffs between different phases of the product lifecycle and reducing inefficiencies in collaboration.
• Lead internal knowledge-sharing sessions, ensuring that product teams are continuously learning, improving, and adopting best practices in experimentation, data-driven decision-making, and operational efficiency. These sessions will focus on upskilling teams, fostering alignment, and driving a culture of continuous improvement.

Who You Are:

• 7+ years of work experience in product operations or product management roles 
• 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.
• Expertise in product development methodologies and advanced toolsets.
• Strong expertise in A/B testing, multivariate testing, structured experimentation, and data-driven product decision-making.
• Excellent facilitation and communication skills, with experience leading cross-functional retreats and workshops to align teams on major transitions.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and projects.
• 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.
• You fit our Five Cultural Tenets (see What is Educate! About? below); Learn more by looking at Educate!’s culture deck here 

Terms 

Compensation will be competitive and commensurate with experience

Benefits include medical insurance, paid time off

What We Offer 💼

• A vibrant, mission-driven environment with a supportive and fun team. 
• Competitive salary based on experience.
• Learning & growth opportunities  

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.