Principal Product Manager (Learning)

About Imagine Worldwide

All children have immense potential, but hundreds of millions don’t have access to the learning they need. Imagine Worldwide’s mission is to empower millions of children across Sub-Saharan Africa with the literacy and numeracy skills they need to reach their full potential. We provide an innovative education technology solution and implementation model to the global literacy/numeracy learning crisis using the onebillion application and various toolkits and systems to support implementation. Nine Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) across multiple countries and settings have shown dramatic learning gains, increased school attendance, and gender parity, all for less than $7 per child per year.

Imagine Worldwide partners with governments, organizations, and communities to provide child-directed, tablet-based learning that is accessible, effective, and affordable. We are a California-based (United States) nonprofit organization operating across seven Sub-Saharan African countries. Learn more on our website.

 

About the Role

Over the next six years, Imagine’s goal is to serve more than 10 million children in at least four countries, ultimately achieving three times the typical level of literacy and numeracy outcomes of national education systems in Africa (60% fluency by the age of 10, as opposed to 20%). This all while delivering the program at less than $5 per child per year. Being a product-driven organization is key to achieving this goal.

We are seeking a Principal Product Manager (PPM) to lead the end-to-end product vision, strategy, and execution of a holistic tablet-based learning platform designed to enable pre-literate children in Africa, ages 6–13, with foundational literacy and numeracy skills.

This role blends pedagogical leadership with technical product ownership — balancing evidence-based educational design with scalable technology choices for constrained environments. The PPM will own the product roadmap, coordinate with curriculum experts, engineers, designers, and field partners, and ensure the solution is pedagogically sound, technically robust, and contextually adapted to local needs. The role will report directly to Imagine’s Head of Technology.

 

Key Responsibilities

Product Leadership and Strategy

• Define and own the product vision, roadmap, and success metrics.
• Ensure the product addresses both literacy and numeracy in a structured, culturally relevant, and engaging way.
• Translate educational research and learning science into clear, productized learning journeys.
• Drive a learner-centered approach, tailoring content and UX to children who are first-time readers and technology users.

Pedagogical Oversight

• Collaborate with educators, learning designers, and child development experts to integrate evidence-based pedagogy.
• Ensure learning pathways are progressive, adaptive, and inclusive.
• Champion the integration of play-based, game-based, and story-driven learning models.

Technical Product Ownership

• Define functional and non-functional requirements.
• Collaborate with engineering and design to ensure robust performance on low-cost Android tablets operating in a no-to-low connectivity environment.
• Make trade-offs between user experience, scalability, and resource constraints.
• Partner with analytics teams to design reporting and feedback loops that measure product effectiveness.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Serve as the bridge between pedagogical experts, software engineers, content creators, and field operations teams.
• Facilitate user research and field testing in diverse African contexts.
• Build relationships with NGOs, ministries of education, and local communities.
• Mentor other product practitioners in the organisation.

 

Requirements

Candidate Requirements

The successful candidate will possess the following competencies, experiences, and qualities:

Core Qualifications

• 10+ years of product management experience, including 3+ years in a principal individual contributor or senior leadership role.
• Proven track record of building and scaling educational technology or child-focused digital products.
• Deep understanding of learning science, curriculum design, or early childhood education.
• Strong technical fluency, able to engage with engineering on app performance, architecture, and deployment.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Desired Experience

• Experience with tablet-based or mobile-first applications in resource-constrained environments.
• Familiarity with African educational contexts.
• Success in delivering offline-first and low-bandwidth products.
• Experience with adaptive learning or game-based learning.
• Exposure to open-source EdTech and NGO/public-sector partnerships.

Personal Attributes

• Mission-driven and passionate about educational equity.
• Empathetic toward first-time learners and educators.
• Strategic thinker with hands-on execution skills.
• Cross-cultural sensitivity and willingness to spend time in the field.

 

Qualities

•  Passion for Imagine’s mission and vision 
•  Demonstrated commitment to equity in educational access and outcomes
• Passion for project management
• Demonstrated ability to think independently and solve problems
• Collaborative team player; clear and proactive communicator
• Flexible, adaptable, and able to work in a fast-paced, changing environment

 

Compensation & Benefits

Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience.

 

Location

The role is fully remote but must work regular hours that have at least 4 hours overlap with 9am-6pm in UK and South African timezones. International travel to field sites will be required at least every second month, or up to once a month.

 

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Imagine Worldwide is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.