MESH is looking for a CTO

MESH is the first social media platform built for the hustle.

We’re looking for a new CTO to own the technology vision & strategy and the product development to enable us to deliver our product roadmap.

• If you’re passionate about using tech to enable the success of young entrepreneurs in Africa
• If you love to take a successful MVP to the next level
• If you live to unlock the power of data for more personalised experiences
• If you’d love to figure out how we can use AI to create livelihoods at a massive scale,
• If you are based in a GMT +4 time zone

...Read on!

WHY WE EXIST

Over the next twenty years, a billion young people in Africa are going to look for a way to make a living. But there are no jobs. As a result, young people are starting businesses to make a living: businesses like urban farming, digital marketing, nail salons, delivery services, content creation and more. They need a network, business skills, and capital—and that's what we provide.

MESH is currently live in Kenya – and we plan to expand across Africa in the next two years.

READY FOR GROWTH

Our 250k+ MAU are already using MESH to grow their networks and build their income. 68%report improved earnings, two thirds say they’ve found a business idea or learned a skill on MESH.

Last year, we grew at an average monthly growth rate of 33 % month-on-month in total active users and 40% month-on-month growth in active women users.

We’re now reaching 4 million young people through our social channels each month.

Business partners are scaling fast. MESH is working with a range of commercial clients across multiple sectors including, professional services (Deloitte) electric mobility (Arc Ride), e-commerce, fashion, and FMCG (Unilever) amongst a growing pipeline of demand from others.

Gates Foundation & Mastercard CFIG are now backing R&D for MESH data-enabled Financial Services. We are live with two financial service partners. With-permission data will enable low-risk/ low-cost working capital, credit & savings products, opening-up financial services and support to a massive new market. 

THE TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGES

Our amazing MVP has taken us to 250k MAU!

For MESH to scale, we now need to take this MVP to the next step in our growth journey and unlock the power of data to recommend the right content, opportunities and connections to the right MESHERS through algorithms and machine learning.

Our early pilots with financial services are also ready to scale through leveraging alternative social data to build predictive credit scoring.

Finally, we believe generative AI can help provide MESHERS with the right biz info and skills.

THE CTO WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR:

The CTO reports to the CEO and works closely with the Head of Product. The CTO line manages a team of 5+ developers.

Technology vision & strategy

• The CTO is responsible for guiding the technology vision and strategy that supports the delivery of the product roadmap and achieve the business’s KPIs.
• The CTO is a member of the exco team and contributes to shaping the product strategy by advising the head of product and CEO on relevant and applicable technologies to deliver the product vision.

Co-design and solution architecture

•  During the design phase of any new product or features, the CTO works hand in hand with the head of product to inform the product design based on technical feasibility and desirability; The CTO investigates to find answers to design questions, conducts technology Proof of Concepts and presents trade-offs to help the product team make the best design decisions.
• The CTO is responsible for all solution architecture, both application and cloud architecture and to design, groom and document all non-functional requirements and to manage the technical backlog to support the product backlog.

Product development

• The CTO leads the engineering team, both in-house staff and technology vendor. He/she is responsible for all product development to build all features in the product and technology roadmap.
• The CTO is responsible for the ROI on development budget
• The CTO is accountable for the overall performance of the sprint (velocity, quality of the code, 95% user acceptance, successful and timely release).
• The CTO manages the day-to-day sprint progress and sprint rituals, following an agile methodology, including sprint planning, daily stand-ups, demo, and retrospective. The CTO ensures that all developers build in an agile way and ship stories daily throughout the sprint.
• The CTO also ensures that developers follow the agreed technical design and implement non-functional requirements.
• Ideally, The CTO is hands-on and can also write code when necessary, and does code reviews of components created by the developers.

Lead the development team

• The CTO is responsible for the performance of each developer and the quality of the code and technical output. He/she is responsible to mentor each developer, conduct regular performance and code reviews, and identify development and training opportunities to upskill the team and improve productivity.
• The CTO is responsible to ensure that the development team follows code best practices, including code standards across the team, code review/PR/Unit test process.

WE’RE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WHO:

This position is open for someone available on a part-time or full-time basis and can be fully remote in any GMT+4 time zone.

• Shares our passion and mission for building an impactful product that solves the most pressing needs of young entrepreneurs in the informal sector in Kenya and beyond.
• Has successfully built a social media platform, financial services, and/or similar data-enabled products at scale.
• Can think big picture and technology strategy, while at the same time be hands-on and roll up their sleeves to write some code with the developers if/when the team is stuck.
• Is user-centred and can collaborate well with the product team.
• Has great leadership skills and can motivate and nurture a team of developers.
• Has great communication skills and can effectively translate technology-related problems and solutions to the business team and other non-engineer team members.
• Has10+ years of full-stack development experience and solution architecture.
• Has7+ years of technical leadership, managing and building teams of developers.  
• Has4+ years of cloud solution architecture experience on Microsoft Azure (infrastructure, apps, microservices and DevOps using ADO); can leverage off the shelf Microsoft solutions in an agile way.
• Is proficient with the following programming languages: React and JavaScript.
• Has experience building mobile applications for Android.
• Preferably has worked in a start-up environment and lives and breathes agile!
• Preferably has experience building for SEO.
•  Additional experience with data engineering and data science is a plus.

WHAT WE OFFER

• A spot on a young, warm and informal team of ambitious, driven young Africans
• An opportunity touse your tech skills to make a big impact for young entrepreneurs
• A seat at the leadership table
• A proven MVP to take to the next level
• A chance to design algorithms and integrate AI
• A role on location or remote, part-time or full-time, as fits the right candidate
• Good remuneration

THE APPLICATION PROCESS

We’d love to take a look at:

• your cv or a link to a complete LinkedIn profile
• a description of the last two products you built, with a link to where we can find out more about them

And let us know what gets you excited about this role!

Send it over to us in an email, to HR@mesh.life

We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis.