Massive Recruitment at M-KOPA Solar Ltd Kenya

M-KOPA Solar, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, is the global leader of "pay-as-you-go" energy for off-grid customers.  

The company was founded in 2011 by former executives behind M-PESA (the world's leading mobile payment platform) on the belief that mobile technology could revolutionize energy services in emerging markets the same way it has already revolutionized the delivery of communications and financial services. 
 


Position Title:
 Project Manager – Market Development


Department:
 Market Development

Overall Purpose:
 Market Development spearheads the innovation and piloting of new Products within the Ecosystem of M-Kopa’s products with subsequent implementation of multiple pilots for new products. 
The Project Manager will be based in Eldoret with 50 percent of their time allocated to field work particularly North Rift, Nyanza and Western regions. 

Relationships:

Reports to: Head of Market Development
   
 
Responsibilities:
  • Help run early stage Pay-as-you-go Solar Water pump irrigation trial
  • Pilot distribution for larger solar systems and Accessories
  • Manage and disperse information about pilots within the organization
  • Assist in development from Pilot stage to commercial distribution
  • Business Development
Education:  
  • Minimum of Tertiary/Diploma educated.  
  • A Marketing/Project Management background or prior relatable experience in a similar role will be an added advantage.
Minimum years of experience
  • At least 1 year in a similar position.  
Required Skills   
  • Attention to detail
  • Good communications and interpersonal skills
  • Strong process management
  • Analytical, self-motivated, result oriented and able to manage and perform under extreme pressure.
  • Able to influence at high level.
  • Set high standards in organizing and planning
Remuneration: The position comes with a competitive and generous salary package that includes a Company phone, laptop and car.  

Job Title: Training Officer
 
Job Summary: The role is responsible for supporting the sales department through providing total coverage of all appropriate training needs.
 
Responsibilities 


  • Evaluating training requirements for the sales department, consulting with departmental head and HR
  • Designing training curriculum to facilitate meeting departmental goals.
  • Developing and maintaining training material to the highest standards.
  • Ensure that all members of staff, new and existing, within the sales department are trained to an appropriate level.
  • To maintain effective communication and knowledge transfer with the sales team
  • Organizing the training including: determining training schedules, venues, facilities and supporting other trainer in training.
  • Managing the training operations budget to ensure maximum return on investments.
  • Developing training impact assessment methodology and  implementing within set timelines
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of training and modify materials as appropriate.
  • Preparing Training Reports
Key Competencies
  • Good understanding of adult learning techniques
  • Effective communication skills, leadership and time management skills
  • Formal training qualification is desirable
  • Computer literacy
Experience
  • Minimum of 2 year in a training role
  • Experience of working within a sales environment is desirable
  • Experience of communicating at all levels up to and including senior management
  • Experience of designing, delivering and maintaining training materials.

Position Title: Firmware Developer, Kenya
 
Location: Nairobi
 
Position Start: Date ASAP
 
Contract: 1 year renewable with possibility of permanent placement after 1 year’s reviewed performance
 
Reporting to: Head of Engineering
 
Key Accountabilities
  • Development of firmware for M-KOPA’s family of solar products.
  • Optimization of the hardware/firmware interaction during new product development.
  • Test management during new product development.
Skills & Experience:
 
Crucial:
  • Education in electrical engineering, computer science, or electronics or relevant credentials
  • Optimization of the hardware/firmware interaction during new product development.
  • Exposure programming in C
  • Willing to travel sporadically outside Nairobi
Plus:
  • Experience analyzing and debugging hardware and firmware interaction at the PCB level.
  • Extensive experience developing firmware for embedded hardware in C (for PIC18F family) and in assembly.
  • Programming experience with MySQL and the ability to read and modify circuit schematics in an ECAD program (for example, EAGLE) would be an extra advantage
Remuneration: Competitive covering a monthly salary and medical benefits reflective of the candidate’s experience and skills.

Database Administrator
 
M-KOPA is seeking a skilled and motivated Database Administrator to help manage M-KOPA’s database servers and applications. 

Location:
 Nairobi, Kenya 
Start Date: ASAP 

Reporting to:
 Head of Technology

Responsibilities Include:


  • Contributing to the design and implementation of SQL Server installations and SQL Based applications both on-premises and cloud-hosted.
  • Continuous performance improvement through the analysis and possible modification of stored procedures, indexes, views, compression and other tuning activities.
  • Configuration and maintenance of SQL Server installations supporting the M-KOPA cloud platform and business services.  Ensuring that the business’s Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) can be met through the use of cloud services and high availability schemes.
  • Troubleshoot SQL Server operational issues as they occur, including after-hours and weekends
  • Configure SQL Server monitoring utilities to minimize false alarms
  • Maintaining operational documentation related to the company’s database environment
  • Manage M-KOPA’s Windows servers
  • Provide M-KOPA application support to end users
  • Build and deploy new Windows servers
  • Willingness to work shifts that may cover weekends and holidays
Skills & Experience 

Required:
  • 3 years or more in a lead database administrator role for SQL Server
  • Hands-on experience of working with SQL Server 2012 and above
  • Experience working with Windows server and Active Directory in the context of SQL Server installation and operation.
  • Experience in Performance Tuning, Query Optimization, using Performance Monitor, SQL Profiler and other related monitoring and troubleshooting tools.
  • Experience in troubleshooting and resolving database issues such as database integrity, performance, blocking and deadlocking, replication amongst others.
  • Experience with backups, restores and recovery models.
  • Knowledge of High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) options for SQL Server.
  • Knowledge of indexes, index management, and statistics.
  • Ability  to write and troubleshoot TSQL and design (stored procedures, functions, tables, views, triggers, indexes, constraints)
  • Ability to effectively communicate and work closely with M-KOPA staff to determine needs and assist with systems requirements.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Desirable:
  • Experience in SQL Server 2014 and In-memory databases
  • Experience in the installation and configuration of Windows Server 2012
  • Experience in building and maintaining applications using the .NET framework
  • Working in a web application development environment
  • Experience managing virtual servers using VMWare or HyperV platforms
  • Microsoft SQL DBA Certification will be considered a big plus
  • MCSE certification will be considered a plus
  • Knowledge in a scripting language like PowerShell will be a plus
  • Experience working with monitoring tools such as PRTG
  • Experience of SQL Server in a cloud-hosted environment and/or SQL Azure
Remuneration: The position comes with a competitive and generous salary package reflective of the candidate’s experience and skills.

Senior Product Development Manager
M-KOPA is seeking an experienced professional to join the M-KOPA product team and manage the development of the company’s product (device) roadmap.
 
Position Overview: The Senior Product Development Manager will be responsible for the delivery of M-KOPA’s product roadmap and will be an integral member of the M-KOPA team. 

This person will be the key point person responsible for the design and coordination of tasks across the various teams engaged in the delivery of M-KOPA’s future products.  

Currently, there are multiple products in the roadmap, at various stages of development that need to be brought to commercialization. This is a high profile position with a direct reporting line to M-KOPA’s senior management team.

Location: There is a strong preference that the person be based in M-KOPA’s Head Office in Nairobi, Kenya, The role will require international travel (approx. 25%) to partner facilities in China, Hong Kong, the UK, and other M-KOPA markets. 

M-KOPA will also consider candidates who wish to be based in Hong Kong or the UK and who are willing to travel more than 50% of the time.

Compensation and Benefits: Competitive and will be based on the applicants skills and experience.
 

Start Date: As soon as possible

Job Responsibilities:
 This Senior Product Development Managers will be a part of the Product Development Team, which operates on a matrix basis with senior managers from engineering, technology, and production teams. 

Key tasks will include:
  • Owning the delivery of all the products on the M-KOPA product roadmap
  • Coordination of all of the work tasks being done by the various teams as they work on new product concepts, design and testing, taking products through the new product development cycle into mass production.
  • Coordinating the deliverables from supporting consultants / suppliers who work with M-KOPA on product development (e.g. design houses, manufacturers, specialist experts, etc)
  • Providing consumer requirement design guidance on all products and working closely with the Engineering and Production teams to ensure that product specifications are in line with business requirements and that technical details are closed down as the product design firms up.
  • Preparation of project management documentation, using on-line tools and ensuring all team members have access to up-to-date information at all times and across multiple geographies
  • Ensuring good management of product details (specifications, drawings, data etc) through the design stages and hand over of this to Production team at mass production
  • Logging decisions and actions and acting as secretary to the Product Committee (where Executive ownership of the roadmap resides).
  • Manage the related budget related to product design and development.
Knowledge Requirement
  • Experienced in production of new products from concept to delivery, with experience in product design preferable
  • At least four years project management experience working on complex, multi-stakeholder projects, ideally in multiple countries with exposure to multiple cultures
  • Very strong project management skills /or formal program management qualifications (e.g. Prince2)
  • Demonstrable record of delivery complex outcomes on time and to budget
  • Strong communicator able to manage teams across time zones and cultures
  • Ability to get others to do things on time
Skills Requirement
  • Excellent interpersonal skills
  • Team building skills
  • Analytical and problem solving skills
  • Decision making skills
  • Effective verbal and listening communications skills
  • Attention to detail and high level of accuracy  

Position Title: Project Manager, India
 
Location: Delhi or Mumbai, TBC. (With extensive travel to rural India and some travel to Kenya)
 
Position Start: Date ASAP (Not later than January 2015)
 
Contract: 1 year renewable with possibility of permanent placement after 1 year’s reviewed performance
 
Reporting to: Head of Asia Markets

Overall Purpose: M-KOPA is expanding their successful business to India and will be launching a pilot in 2015. 

M-KOPA is partnering with a leading mobile phone operator and an established last-mile distributer to provide M-KOPA’s innovative solar products to Indian households.
 
The purpose of the job is to ensure the successful launch and roll-out of the pilot in India, in collaboration with our partners.

Key Accountabilities
  • Responsible for piloting M-KOPA Solar’s business into India with partners in 2015.
  • Training and support to business partners on rolling out M-KOPA’s products and business model.
  • Charged with feeding back to M-KOPA’s technical team local configuration requirements for the effective technical delivery.
  • Managing relationships with key partners.
  • Provide recommendations for commercial roll-out.
Education: Minimum degree educated

Experience:
 At least 5 years of experience. Experience of MFI, solar or telecom markets will be an added advantage

Required Skills             
  • Excellent project and stakeholder management skills.
  • Commercial acumen.
  • Analytical, self-motivated, result oriented, great negotiation skills and able to manage and perform under high pressure.
  • Ability to quickly understand new technology and systems.
  • Ability to quickly understand regulatory and legal requirements.
  • Set high standards in organizing and planning.
  • Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.

Remuneration: Competitive covering a monthly salary, performance bonus and medical benefits reflective of the candidate’s experience and skills.

To apply, send an updated detailed copy of your CV and a cover letter expressing why you feel you would be an excellent candidate for the role to india.applications@m-kopa.com