Senior Product Manager (African market)

pawaPass is building Africa’s universal KYC switch - one platform that lets a street‑vendor in a small village in Ghana open a mobile wallet as quickly as a banker in Nairobi. Fresh capital secured, live data flowing, and regulatory doors opening: we’re hiring a Senior Product Manager to translate that momentum into a roadmap that makes identity a solved problem, not a luxury.

This is your chance to be a true product brain - working directly with the CPTO and tech lead to turn strategic direction into clear, efficient, scalable product delivery. If you understand the nuances of emerging markets, can connect the dots across UX, tech, compliance, and business, and have the leadership DNA to grow into a Head of Product, this role’s for you.

Your role

You’ll join a small but highly technical and committed core team. Your role is to own the entire product lifecycle, from roadmap vision to working release, across:

• customer-facing verification flow

• partner-facing API

• admin dashboard for internal and partner use.

What you’ll do:

• Own the product roadmap, balancing long-term vision with near-term delivery

• Detect and resolve friction points across UX, tech, compliance, and business

• Work hand-in-hand with the tech lead to understand blockers, technical tradeoffs, and implementation scope

• Collaborate with the Project Manager to structure tickets, define epics, and keep sprints flowing

• Drive product discovery, rapid iteration, and MVP definitions

• Translate complex flows (e.g., identity verification, biometric consent, RBAC logic) into simple, usable product decisions

• Run and interpret data from the analytics tool and real-market usage

• Align with the compliance team and stakeholders to keep delivery aligned with evolving business and regulatory needs

• Be a clear, confident voice during cross-functional product conversations

  
  

What we’re looking for:

You’re a product leader in the making - equally fluent in user journeys, backend constraints, business priorities, and what it really takes to ship. You don’t need to code, but you need to think in logic trees, flows, and APIs. Most importantly, you understand emerging markets - not as a theory, but as a lived product reality. You know that Internet is slow, regulation is evolving, and trust has to be earned screen by screen.

You’ll thrive here if you:

• Navigate UX, tech, and compliance like a systems thinker

• Lead with questions and clarity, not control or process-for-process’ sake

• Care more about outcome than ownership

• Want to be part of real product growth, not theoretical frameworks

  
  

You’ll need:

• 5+ years in product management, product strategy, or technical product roles

• Proven experience owning complex B2B or B2C product flows (the best if both)

• Strong understanding of technical architecture, API flows, and product design

• Experience working with PMs, engineers, and designers in fast-moving teams

• Clear track record of work related to emerging markets (a must)

• Confidence defining MVPs, launching in iterations, and improving what matters

• Excellent communication skills with both technical and non-technical audiences

• Hands-on use of tools for product testing, data analysis, or UX reviews

  
  

Nice to have:

• Background in KYC, fintech, or infrastructure-heavy products

• Experience in mobile-first, low-connectivity environments

• Familiarity with identity flows, biometric systems, or compliance-heavy stacks

• Exposure to cross-border regulatory environments or digital public infrastructure

  
  

Why this role matters:

• You’ll own product decisions that shape real identity infrastructure, with access to millions of potential users to verify from day one

• You’ll work at the intersection of engineering, regulation, and user impact

• You’ll step into a role with real authority, and the potential to grow into Head of Product

What we offer:

• A key product-oriented role in a funded, fast-moving startup

• MacBook Pro M4 and full setup

• Flexible working hours

• Full-time B2B contract

• 20 days paid time off + paid sick leave

What we stand for:

We’re deeply embedded in Sub-Saharan Africa, with privileged access to top-tier betting platforms, mobile wallet providers, and regulatory stakeholders. We're serious about privacy (zero-data by design), performance under constraints, and building for real-world, low-bandwidth environments. Our goal is to exit the incubator phase and become the default KYC verification layer for Africa’s digital economy within 18 months.

Join now, and your fingerprints will be on the architecture, the experience – and the movement.