Partner Engineer

Angaza creates solutions for selling life-changing products in underserved markets.

Millions of people in more than thirty countries, from Kenya to Nigeria to India, use technology developed by Angaza to buy solar home systems with “pay-as-you-go” (PAYG) financing. These off-grid products are designed and manufactured by Angaza partners such as Greenlight Planet or Fosera, with Angaza collaborating to integrate PAYG functionality into the product firmware, electronics, and overall design.

After the sale, a local distributor uses Angaza software to manage that family’s affordable payment plan. Each installment payment is processed by Angaza backend software, reactivating the solar home system by communicating with the embedded Angaza firmware.

Intelligent connected devices make this story possible. Angaza designs the embedded hardware and software behind that intelligence, with a focus on communication technologies ranging from secure keycodes to GSM. We work with product partners to integrate our PAYG solutions into their device hardware, and we support their distribution customers with software tools to leverage the features and of those solutions.

Angaza designs technology that works for people and places that are often edge cases for other companies. Those underserved markets are our core users.Kilima

This Position

In this role, you will directly contribute to the development of off-grid energy products for emerging markets. 

More specifically, you’ll be responsible for providing technical guidance to bring new products to market from Angaza hardware partners, and for onboarding new hardware product partners into the Angaza embedded and IoT ecosystems. You’ll conduct technical discussions with potential new partners, work through integrating Angaza PAYG solutions into their products, and work with our engineers to continue growing and improving Angaza’s IoT solutions. With all hardware product partners, the impact of your work will be to help their products reach underserved consumers through Angaza’s network of off-grid distribution companies.

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Providing seamless end-to-end support for integration of Angaza PAYG hardware in partner products, from choosing the correct IoT solution through QA testing, manufacturing, and post-sale technical support
• Communicating effectively as the primary point of contact with our manufacturing partners’ engineering teams, across multiple time zones.
• Reviewing electrical schematics and layouts thoroughly against our reference designs
• Guiding our embedded software into product firmware and consulting on best practices for making secure and intuitive PAYG products
• Supporting internal and external stakeholders, including sales and customer success teams, through technical documentation, consultation, and presentations
• Working closely with our Director of Manufacturing Partnerships to manage relationships with manufacturing partners and evaluate potential partnership opportunities

Should You Reach Out?

You should have 4+ years of professional experience in some combination of hardware engineering, embedded software engineering, partner engineering, or similar roles. The following areas must be part of your background:

• Excellent written and verbal communications with customers and partners, especially when English is not everyone’s first language
• Experience managing simultaneous projects with multiple internal/external stakeholders from start to finish
• Familiarity with software development in C
• Ability to read and understand electrical schematics

Beyond the above, experience in any of the following areas is valuable but not required:

• Expertise in designing embedded software in C
• Experience with software development in Python
• Familiarity with battery technology and power electronics
• Familiarity with IoT or telecom M2M systems and protocols
• Ability to speak/read Mandarin Chinese
• Experience doing business in China, especially for manufacturing of electronic products at volume
• Previous startup experience

We don’t expect you to check all of these boxes! You’re not expected to arrive as an expert in everything.

Next Step

This position reports to our San Francisco office. Remote candidates are encouraged to reply, as long as they are based in the US, eligible to work in the US, and are comfortable adjusting their working hours to mostly overlap with Pacific time.

Send us your contact details and résumé using the form linked here. Feel free to attach any extra information you think we should know. We look at every single person. We’ll get back to you shortly.

Our Commitment to DEI

At Angaza we support diversity of thought, experience, and background, and welcome new perspectives and skills to the team. We evaluate all candidates on the basis of their ability to meet stated job requirements, and we do not discriminate against candidates on the basis of sex, gender, marital status, religion, nationality, or other personal characteristics. In keeping with our commitment to supporting a safe and inclusive workplace, we strongly encourage candidates from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds to apply. 

Other Details

Angaza is a for-profit company based in San Francisco and Nairobi.

Our global technical team is more than two dozen people. We strive to be thoughtful, pragmatic, and collaborative. You can read more about Angaza engineering culture on Key Values and our engineering blog.

Our hiring process always includes an initial phone conversation and at least one on-site interview. We don’t believe in gotcha logic puzzles or adversarial whiteboard exercises, and we give you specific constructive feedback wherever possible.

Employees receive salary, an equity stake in Angaza, and benefits that include:

• Medical, life, and disability insurance
• 401(k) with company match
• Your transit or bike commute expenses paid by Angaza (if you commute)
• Parental leave at 100% salary
• Flexible time off
• Free snacks and drinks (if you’re in an office)
• Team and mission that you can believe in