Product Manager

Job Title: Product Manager

Location: Sandton, Gauteng, SO/On-site (Flexible)

Reports to: Chief Technical Officer (CTO)

Department: Product Development

About Akiba Digital:

Akiba Digital is an industry-agnostic data orchestration and decisioning platform, enabling businesses to improve risk management, reduce fraud, and streamline decision-making through real-time alternative scoring and risk-based assessments. With an ambitious goal to power 1 million automated risk decisions in under a minute by 2025, were seeking a dynamic Product Manager to drive product innovation, cross-functional collaboration, and growth.

Role Overview:

The Product Manager will be responsible for defining, prioritizing, and delivering innovative product solutions that align with Akiba Digitals vision and growth strategy. This role requires an individual with strong technical, strategic, and business acumen to manage the development of our core offerings, including the low-code decisioning platform, alternative scoring solutions, and real-time monitoring products.

You will collaborate closely with engineering, data partnerships, sales, marketing, and customer success teams to ensure product alignment with market needs, client success, and Akibas North Star metric.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Product Strategy & Roadmap Development:

Define and execute the product roadmap aligned with Akiba Digitals 2025 strategy, focusing on enabling high volumes of automated decisions.

Identify market opportunities and prioritize features to improve operational efficiency, compliance, fraud detection, and customer acquisition.

Balance short-term improvements with long-term strategic initiatives.

2. Customer-Centric Product Development:

Collaborate with customers to understand their needs and translate those into functional product requirements.

Work closely with the Go-To-Market team to ensure product features align with ideal customer profiles and address market gaps.

Engage with clients to validate features, use cases, and prototypes.

3. Cross-Functional Collaboration:

Work with engineering, data partnerships, and R&D teams to deliver product enhancements on time and within budget.

Partner with Sales and Customer Success teams to support product demos, PoVs, and client onboarding processes.

Align closely with operations to monitor performance metrics related to decision speed, accuracy, and adoption rates.

4. Low-Code/No-Code Platform Development:

Guide the development of configurable, low-code risk workflows and decisioning tools that empower clients to run their own scores and analyses.

Ensure scalability, security, and performance optimization of the platform.

5. Monitoring & Continuous Improvement:

Use data analytics to measure product success through KPIs (e.g., breadth, depth, frequency, and efficiency).

Continuously seek feedback to drive product improvements and ensure high levels of user adoption and satisfaction.

Analyze competitor offerings (e.g., Moodys, FICO) to inform product enhancements and maintain differentiation.

6. Compliance & Risk Enablement:

Ensure products meet regulatory and compliance standards in South Africa and other relevant markets.

Integrate fraud prevention and compliance workflows as core product features.

Required Skills and Qualifications:

Experience: 5+ years in product management within fintech, regtech, or SaaS environments. Experience with decisioning engines, low-code platforms, or risk management tools is a plus.

Technical Acumen: Strong understanding of API integrations, product architecture, and scalable SaaS platforms.

Data-Driven Mindset: Ability to analyze product performance metrics and use insights to drive decisions.

Communication & Collaboration: Excellent ability to work cross-functionally and communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

Agile Methodology: Experience working in an agile product development environment, with SCRUM or similar frameworks.

Compliance Knowledge: Familiarity with regulatory frameworks such as KYC, KYB, AML, and data privacy laws.

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience working with clients in South Africa, Kenya, or similar markets

Familiarity with data orchestration platforms or alternative scoring models

Knowledge of tools like HubSpot, JIRA, Confluence, and data visualization platforms

Key Attributes:

Visionary thinker with a hands-on approach

Strong problem-solving and decision-making capabilities

Ability to prioritize effectively in a fast-paced, high-growth environment

Adaptability and eagerness to stay ahead of industry trends and technologies

Benefits:

Competitive salary with performance-based bonuses

Flexible working environment

Professional development and growth opportunities

Collaborative team culture with purpose-driven work

Opportunity to make a meaningful impact in financial inclusion and risk management across Africa

Join us on our mission to revolutionize risk decisioning and transform financial services across Africa.

To apply, please send your resume and a brief cover letter to people@akibadigital.com.