IT Operations Director

Our mission

We're making Africa the first cashless continent.

In 2017, over half the population in Sub-Saharan Africa had no bank account. That's for good reason—the fees are too high, the closest branch can be miles away, and nobody takes cards. Without access to financial institutions, people are forced to keep their savings under the mattress. Small business owners rely on lenders who charge extortionate rates. Parents spend hours waiting in line to pay school fees in cash.

We're solving this by building financial services that just work: no account fees, instantly available, and accepted everywhere. In places where electricity, water and roads don't always work, you can still send money with Wave. In 2017, we launched a mobile app in Senegal for cash deposit, withdrawal, and peer-to-peer and business payments. Now, we have millions of users across six countries and are growing fast.

Our goal is to make Africa the first cashless continent and that's where you come in...

How you'll help us achieve it 

Wave is now the largest financial institution in Senegal, with over 7 million users. And, we’re still in the early days of our product roadmap and potential impact on people’s everyday lives.

We’re looking for an IT Operations Director who is a strong communicator and excited about getting things done. Wave has operations in seven countries in Africa, is expanding into several more, and also has a remote employee population spanning dozens of countries. Our IT Operations team is the first point of contact for employees in issues relating to hardware, software, access management, and various troubleshooting channels. As the IT Director you will establish data- and metric-driven dashboards to drive process improvements, adjust the team’s composition to reflect its growing scope and the company’s increasing headcount, and ensure there are clearly defined processes for cross-team procedures such as hardware lifecycle management and SaaS management.

In this role, you'll; 

• Define the IT and Telephony team’s strategy and objectives.
• Manage existing IT and Telephony operation teams and their scope of work, including infrastructure management, project execution, quality control, change management, network support, onboarding/off-boarding and access management.
• Ensure IT policies and processes are developed from first principles, and integrate seamlessly with our local and remote people operations.
• Define and improve metrics on IT’s areas of responsibility, including but not limited to IT and telephony network and services, technical onboarding of employees, hardware management, IT and Infosec training.
• Partner with Engineering to rollout processes and policies related to Information Security management.
• Partner closely with Engineering, Product, Compliance, Procurement, People Operations to determine their technology needs and create and implement team initiatives based on these assessments.
• Make innovative and effective system and technology investment decisions.
• Identify the need for upgrades, configurations or new systems and reporting to Leadership.
• Assist in building relationships with vendors and creating cost-efficient contracts.

Key Details

• You can work remotely from anywhere (between UTC -1 and +5) with reliable Internet access.
• Wave covers travel once per year to one of our operating countries in Africa, as well as a yearly stipend of $800 to meet with coworkers.
• We run performance reviews twice a year and award bonuses or promotions to strong performers who have been with the company for more than six months.
• This role involves participating in an on-call rotation.
• Our salaries are competitive and are calculated using a transparent formula. For this role, we are offering a salary of up to $136,720 USD (paid in your local currency equivalent) plus a generous equity package.
• Major benefits: 
• Subsidized health insurance for you and your dependents and retirement contributions (both vary from country to country
• 6 months fully paid parental leave and subsidized fertility assistance
• Flexible vacation, with most folks taking between 30-40 days per year
• $10,000 annual charitable donation matching

Requirements

• 10 years extensive experience in information technology or a related field.
• Minimum of 5 years experience in leadership.
• Experience in budgeting, forecasting, and resource allocation.
• Bachelor's or Masters degree in a relevant field.
• Experience managing OS environments and tools such as Jamf, Jira, Monday, and Google Workspace, Chromebook, Mobile Device Fleet Management.
• Experience working in a rapidly scaling startup or rapid growth environment.
• Fluency in English (Fluency in French is advantageous)

You might be a good fit if you 

• Are willing to travel to Wave's office locations in Africa to support teams.
• Care a lot about doing the right thing, both for users and for colleagues.
• Are able to do gritty, hands on work, but also know when and how to effectively delegate.
• Can communicate clearly with colleagues who work, speak and think differently.
• Can easily default to over-communication and overreaching when it comes to coordination.
• Are intellectually curious and creative in the way you go about tackling problems.

Our team

• We have a rapidly growing in-country team in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, and Uganda, plus remote team members spread across the world.
• We're deeply passionate about our mission of bringing radically affordable financial services to the people who need them most.
• We foster autonomy for our employees. You'll own your projects at every stage, from understanding the problem to monitoring your solution in production.
• We raised the largest Series A in Africa in 2021. Our world-class investors, include Founders Fund, Sequoia Heritage, Stripe, Ribbit Capital, Y Combinator, and Partech Africa.
• In 2023, we were on Y Combinator's top 50 companies by revenue.

How to apply

Fill out the form below, and upload a resume in English and a cover letter describing your interest in Wave and the role.

We review applications frequently and recommend that you apply to the role that most closely aligns with your skills, experience and career goals.

Wave is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.