Senior Product Manager

We Are Innovators & Category Creators

Clickatell, founded in Cape Town in 2000, was the first company to connect businesses with consumers via SMS using just four lines of code. Today, it powers AI-driven chat commerce for leading global brands across industries like banking, retail, telecoms, and healthcare — including Visa, ABSA, MTN, Toyota, and Pick n Pay. Over 25 years, Clickatell has led multiple industry firsts, such as tokenized WhatsApp payments, KYC chat banking, and Chat-2-Pay, through its award-winning AI Chat Commerce Platform that enables brands to interact and transact with customers seamlessly

Purpose

We are seeking a Senior Product Manager to join our Champion team focused on disrupting a $50B+ market. This role is deemed essential in managing and growing our SMS and WhatApp channel service offerings. The role will specifically focus on managing the SMS and WhatApp communication operating Clicktatell’s SMS and WhatApp channel platforms. SMS and WhatApp channel communication is critical component of our customers chat commerce journeys.

We Do The Right Things

Responsibilities of the Role

o Management of Clickatell's SMS and WhatApp channel product portfolio and related platforms, operational support and administration systems.

o Drive the vision, roadmap and development of the SMS and WhatApp messaging channel across Clickatell's SMS messaging and WhatApp channel platforms.

o Collaborate closely with stakeholders across the company to plan and execute end to end SMS and WhatApp channel based solution development involving multiple products and systems.

o Drive new product introductions through all stages of the product development process including business cases, development, GTM, launch schedule, trainings, and pricing.

o Manage product delivery into a series of releases and work with the engineering team to facilitate the rapid and accurate delivery of product features and use-cases.

o Perform backlog tracking of operational and bug issues and prioritization jointly with stake holders. Interface with stakeholders like Product Managers, Support, Marketing, Sales, etc.

o Take responsibility for final user acceptance testing (UAT) of SMS and WhatApp channel releases Senior Product Manager (SMS).

o Develop business & product requirements, operational processes, and other relevant product documentation in collaboration with multidisciplinary teams both internal and external.

o Design and create process documentation required to help collaboration in our expanding organization.

o Design necessary handoff processes with key stakeholders; Publish and execute against these processes.

o Engage on a regular basis with Support and Sales teams, bringing them up to date regarding releases, new developments, and major changes.

o Support Sales in key sales deals

o Manage EOL process for legacy SMS products and the transition of legacy SMS platform customers to new SMS and WhatApp channel offers and services.

o Define, publish, and own metrics as part of product launches and feature development and report on these on a scheduled and ad hoc manner as required.

o Support the Product Leadership team in analysing opportunities and developing the relevant artefacts such as business cases, leadership presentation material, etc.

o Ensure you have clear and articulated vision, mission and key performance indicators for each aspect of your products and analyse behaviour and identify inhibitors and opportunities.

o Perform market research and coordinate output documentation with the Product Marketing team to fully understand clients, competitors, and markets.

o Cooperate with the Partnership team to stay on top of changing SMS and WhatApp channel regulations coming from mobile operators or country regulators and implement new requirements.

We Are On A Learning Journey

Requirements of the Role

o Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science / Engineering or Business degree / diploma (BBA, MBA, Business Analysis certification).

Work Experience

o Minimum 5 years’ experience as product manager or product owner or technical lead of mobile/SaaS software applications. Messaging or telecom specific experience is a plus.

o Experience managing software or telecommunication products at various stages of maturity, from legacy to new implementations.

o Technically savvy, experience with cloud services, APIs, communications, software, devices, and mobile services.

o Experience working with Agile Methodology, SDLC and Scrum and demonstrated experience in managing end-to-end software product lifecycles.

o Experience working in a fast-paced technical software development environment where Agile (Scrum) methodologies are practiced.

o Bonus: Experience in market analysis and competitor research

o Bonus: Experience in collaborating with Sales and Solutions Engineering for large customers

Knowledge and Abilities

o Domain knowledge in delivering SaaS products for a B2B software provider.

o Strong analytical skills is a non-negotiable

o Have a keen interest in product management and mobile (messaging) services

o Excellent communication skills in the form of written, verbal, and presentation in front of an audience.

A Bit About You: Tactical

Behavioral competency requirements of a Pacesetter:

o Cultivating Talent: Actively drives the development of skills and strengths within the team, and recognizes achievements. Coaches the team on procedures, technical issues and priorities. Leads and contributes to a positive team environment with open communication and clear goals. Listens to team members’ feedback and resolves any issues or conflicts.

o Managing Resources: Manages resources optimally by making the right decisions that impacts how resources are used and for what benefit. Accurately estimates, forecast, projects, and monitors available levels of relevant resources and makes the right calls.

o Expert Exchanges: Seeks and communicates insights. Acts as access point for information within their team and throughout the organization, and ensures sharing of key learnings. Prepares and presents reports, and updates advising on performance and capacity.

o Risk Mitigation: Resolves problems that are relatively complex and drives decision-making processes. Systematically processes key factors when resolving conflict, managing risk, ensuring compliance and addressing quality concerns.

o Foster Teamwork: Builds relationships and influentially engages across teams to elevate performance. Facilitates brainstorming that delivers the best solutions. Encourages an inclusive culture where voices are heard and being open-minded is valued.

o Emotions and Performance: Puts effort into managing the link between emotions and performance that helps others do their best work by increasing self-awareness and reducing blind spots. Fosters a safe environment where others feel comfortable to take smart risks and build relationships.

o Drive Execution: Develops tactical plans that support the strategy and plans the detail of the projects, activities, and resources to deliver the goal.

o Coordinating Activity: Develops and manages processes conceptually and technically. Plans, monitors work, and accurately reads situations to course correct and ensure expectations are met.

o Navigating Change: Delivers change by bringing the team together, aligning their work and navigating them through the process. Stays on track by being optimistic and focusing on what is in their control. Executes by getting the right things done by the right people to deliver results.

o Driving Performance: Relentlessly reviews dashboards, systems, KPIs, procedures, and processes, and drives the team’s performance to incrementally improve results. Ensures processes are effective while aligning to best practice and increasing value.

A Bit About You

You are a pacesetter, who is strong in execution and comfortable in a fast-paced environment and working across multiple projects simultaneously. You set the priorities to deliver practical solutions for opportunities and change. You achieve results though maximizing resources and leading the way to the best solutions. You build and invest in relationships and influentially engage across teams, and with specialists, to brainstorm and arrive at the right answers. You develop, finetune and manage processes and coach the team on procedures and adopting new techniques. You are incredibly independent and a self-starter with a microscopic attention to detail. You take initiative by being resourceful and proactive.

Why You Should Join

Perks of the Role

o Healthcare, Retirement Fund and Risk benefit company contributions

o Quarterly performance incentives

o Reimbursable Communication allowances for internet and mobile phone bills

o Half-day off on your birthday

o 5 personal days leave a year, over and above your annual leave

o Remote Working (our offices are currently open for essential use only due to COVID-19)

o Home office set-up with laptop, monitor, chair and UPS

Stronger Together

Clickatell is unequivocally committed to Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. We believe that we are stronger together and that sameness limits our thinking and our opportunities. You are welcome at Clickatell for who you are, no matter where you come from or what you choose to believe. Our platform is for everyone, and so is our workplace. But it isn’t just about a whole lot of different people working together all having their say – it is about us creating a place where we all feel that we belong. It’s in our differences that we will find the power to keep revolutionizing the way the world uses chat technology.