About Kiva
Kiva (Kiva.org) is an innovative non-profit focused on connecting people through lending to alleviate poverty and create opportunity. We run a global marketplace platform for crowdfunded microloans that serves the financially excluded. Our company combines the culture and technological passion of an internet start-up with the compassion and empathy of a non-profit to address poverty at global scale. We aim to drive social impact and enable opportunity while providing a borrower-to-lender connection: “Loans that change lives.” In just 13 years, we have raised more than $1.1 billion in loan capital for 2.7 million borrowers in 83 countries. Our lenders fund over $10 million in loans every month. Kiva is poised to take its initial success to a whole new level, continuing our expansion into new areas such as local lending in the US, student loans, water, and clean energy. Headquartered in San Francisco, Kiva’s team has 100+ employees and 500+ volunteers worldwide.
Job Description
Kiva’s growth and impact goals are lofty and our operations are complex. As a product manager at Kiva you’ll be responsible for leading initiatives that affect lenders, borrowers and Kiva staff around the world. The work is challenging and satisfying and we are seeking someone who is passionate about the Kiva mission and has a track-record of building great consumer facing products.
Over the past 12 months Kiva product managers have worked on a wide range of highly impactful projects, including:
- Designing and launching a new subscription product that makes it easier for lenders to help more borrowers around the world reach their financial goals.
- Building a program in partnership with a major corporation that introduced Kiva to tens of millions of their customers in multiple countries.
- Creating a suite of tools that make it easier for Kiva’s field staff to meet with and gather information from borrowers in the 80+ countries where we work.
- Researching, designing and shipping an improved borrower application and dashboard experience in order to increase the success rate for fundraising and repaying their loans.
- Collaborating with our marketing team on a campaign to celebrate International Women’s Day that drove more than $6,000,000 in loans to women borrowers across the world.
The next 12 months will see us tackling even bigger, more innovative projects as Kiva looks to expand the scope of our offerings in our mission to eradicate financial exclusion. Because of this, we are looking for an exceptional product manager to join the team. This role will involve a great deal of coordination and collaboration with teams across the org and needs someone with impressive leadership, operational, product, technical and marketing skills.
Responsibilities:
- Shape the product roadmap by understanding the needs and impact of various users/customers and identifying the most promising initiatives.
- Work with the engineering, design and marketing teams to deliver new features, product enhancements and delightful user experiences.
- Lead the research / business requirements gathering phase.
- Write user stories / product requirements and create Jira tickets for projects.
- Work with our designers to create wireframes, mockups and prototypes.
- Conduct user research and usability testing.
- Own projects through the full project lifecycle (ideation through launch).
- Work closely with technical teams (including QA) as they release features in an Agile 2 week iteration process.
- Be responsible for ensuring the smooth rollout of new features and the continued quality and performance of existing products.
- Define, measure and analyze metrics. You will own the numbers and make sure that we are looking at the most important data.
- Define and set-up a/b tests to optimize the site.
- Triage production bugs and new feature requests.
- Serve as the voice of the user and ensure that we are correctly balancing the needs of our lenders, borrowers and the Kiva organization.
Ideal Candidate:
- Experience delivering outstanding consumer internet products, ideally with the following attributes:
- Viral user growth through referrals and network effects.
- Online communities that keep users engaged and coming back.
- E-commerce transactions (checkout flows, conversion rates, and merchandising).
- Empathy for users and a great instinct for what makes good design / UX.
- Strong execution orientation; proven ability to deliver quality projects that satisfy and delight customers.
- Experience in an agile software development environment, with rapid feedback loops and quick release cycles.
- You work well in a collaborative environment and are admired by your colleagues for your ability to balance the needs of multiple customers.
- Self-starter and leader. Someone who is able to work through uncertainty to identify promising product opportunities and drive them to launch.
- A great communicator (verbal and written). You are able to make a case to the leadership team for your decisions.
- Passionate about Kiva and its long term potential.
- 5+ years in a product management / product marketing role for a consumer facing and/or fintech website. (This posting is for a Product Manager, but the seniority level will be commensurate with experience. We just want to find the next great addition to Kiva’s product team.)
You Get:
- An amazing mission: Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty across the globe.
- An opportunity to improve real lives, solve hard problems, and change the world.
- Friendly, supportive, and adventurous environment with a team of engaged colleagues.
- A comprehensive, industry-leading benefits package
- Opportunities to connect with and learn from colleagues and partners around the world.
A diverse and inclusive workplace where we learn from each other is an integral part of Kiva’s culture. We actively welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives. We are an equal opportunity employer and a great place to work. Join us and help us achieve our mission!