Senior Director of Technology – MicroMentor

Current unrestricted authorization to work for any U.S. employer is required

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, we know our teams do their best work when they are diverse and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.

The Program / Department / Team

MicroMentor is an initiative of Mercy Corps’ Innovations Team. MicroMentor connects entrepreneurs and business mentors on an easy-to-use social platform that strives to overcome geographical limitations and deliver business resources at scale to under-resourced communities around the globe. At MicroMentor we are committed to creating a world where entrepreneurs have the opportunity to pursue a thriving future for themselves, their families and their communities. And, we give professionals and business people alike, an avenue to pay it forward. Through the power of mentoring, we empower MSMEs, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises to create economic opportunity and jobs. We are the world’s largest network of free business mentoring and a place where underserved entrepreneurs find the help they need for their businesses to survive and grow. MicroMentor has an expanding community, looking to add an additional 100,000+ entrepreneurs to our global community and 33,000+ mentors. Entrepreneurs matched with a mentor have shown significant results in terms of improved job creation, business survival, and revenue growth. Our team is diverse, driven, hardworking and highly committed to the mission of helping small businesses thrive through mentoring and about Mercy Corps’ mission to support our worldwide team that’s improving the lives of 19 million people in 40+ countries.

The Position

Our expanding social enterprise is seeking to hire a part time Director of Technology to join our team. MicroMentor is looking for a senior professional adept at managing small and growing technology teams, help guide the development forward for a high growth social venture, and manage a team of 6-8 senior technology professionals. This position will report to the MicroMentor Executive Director who is seeking guidance and support to own and manage key decisions regarding org chart, product specific decisions, and operational expertise required to kick off and execute these high stakes projects.

This person will work directly with the Executive Director, vendors and team members to align the outputs of the technical team with the product roadmap and business objectives of MicroMentor, scaling appropriately as needed. The role requires strong technical judgement, communication skills, management, leadership, strategic vision and oversight, and the ability to drive change in an evolving organization.

The ideal candidate will have extensive team and engineering management experience and the ability to build a suitable product team to support MicroMentor’s scale and impact goals. This person will have exceptional collaboration skills and ability to partner with cross-functional partners. have big-picture thinking (privacy and security where the technology operates) and bring diplomacy, curiosity, and eagerness to learn (as the technology world is constantly innovated). Their experience with or ability to have an international perspective or knowledge of other cultures will be highly valuable.

Essential Responsibilities

STRATEGY & VISION

• Provide technological vision, deploy modern development methodologies and communicate the role technology plays across the team and key stakeholders and funders.
• Work closely with the Executive Director on overall MicroMentor business strategy and priorities and ensure clarity of vision is communicated across the company and to the technology team
• Develop and manage the technical budget (~$1M) to ensure alignment with business objectives, revenue forecasts and technical output
• Accountable for key development (technical) objectives around platform reliability, scalability, performance, cost and sustainability of the MicroMentor platform within an Objectives & Key Results (OKR) framework..
• Co-Create a revenue growth plan along with the ED
• Coordinate, manage, monitor and assess tech team capacity and effectiveness for top performance and work-life balance.
• Work with the Board of Directors to determine and communicate plans for short and long-term technology goals.
• Oversight and coordination of weekly/monthly performance reporting as it relates to technology development
• Lead the definition of roles and responsibilities of the different members of the technical team. Provide guidance and support around technical hiring of/contract negotiations of remote development teams when necessary; and provide advisor support of the local and remote teams with change management such that there is smooth handoff of fully tested and documented code.

INFLUENCE & REPRESENTATION

• Partner with the ED to make important technology decisions that will drive MicroMentor’s growth and overall impact
• Build partnerships internally, with senior leaders and technical experts building and executing on a shared vision for how technology will amplify impact throughout our work.
• Ensure strong external partnerships, particularly with the private sector, institutional donors and foundations.

TEAM MANAGEMENT

• Manage a team of 6-8 technology professionals to deliver high quality results while balancing work and life priorities. Team well being and development is important to MicroMentor’s culture and this leader will help foster that for this growing team.
• Responsible for Product Ownership, User Experience Research and Design, Technical Support, and Quality Assurance as well as Product Development.
• Support Technical PM in ensuring coordination and collaboration across functions and business teams within MicroMentor.
• Lead engineering staff to evaluate software development and quality assurance to align with business priorities and product roadmap.
• Conduct performance evaluations that are timely and constructive
• Provide training and mentoring to the team as needed

RISK MANAGEMENT

• Assess potential risks and sources of losses for the MicroMentor platform and determine a development/risk mitigation plan
• Lead the engineering team to develop and execute on a content security policy
• Work with Mercy Corps and the MicroMentor term to ensure CARM standards are upheld
• Work closely with the Finance and Compliance Manager to ensure all legal and regulatory documents related to the platform are filed.

Supervisory Responsibility

6-8 direct reports including contractors

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Executive Director of MicroMentor

Works Directly With: MicroMentor leadership Team, Mercy Corps IT, Strategy, and other Mercy Corps’ country teams

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science
• 8+years’ experience engineering/technology management, technology strategy development and , strategy, coordination of budgets and financial reporting, change management, and team leadership; experience in a tech or start-up environment a plus.
• 5+ years of management experience leading a complex or matrixed team, remote management experience is strongly desired
• Excellent communication skills. Demonstrated expertise with software development
• Experience in change management and organizational development is beneficial.
• Experience working with diverse and geographically dispersed teams.
• Ability to build consensus and relationships among managers, partners, and employees.

Success Factors

Successful candidates will be a self-directed strategic thinker, with a passion for technology for development and/or social enterprise. They build strong teams and efficient development practices. They are a proven team leader and innovator, adept at identifying sound technical solutions for business problems and a thoughtful team builder and motivator. Big-picture vision and an eye for details/process are a must.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is based in Portland, Oregon, USA — or remote within the U.S. with availability during Pacific Time Zone business hours. It requires up to 20% travel to support country programs and for fundraising and partner visits/events. This may include travel to insecure locations where freedom of movement is limited and areas where amenities are limited.

Ongoing Learning

In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.