M-KOPA is seeking
Position Title: Application System Engineer
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Position Start: ASAP
Contract: Permanent
Reporting to: Head of Technology Operations
Overall Purpose: Responsible for the maintenance of M-KOPA’s core application systems.
About M-KOPA Solar: M-KOPA Solar, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, is the global leader of “pay-as-you-go” energy for off-grid customers.
Since its commercial launch in October 2012, M-KOPA has connected more than 250,000 homes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to solar power, and is now adding over 500 new homes each day.
The success of M-KOPA (M= mobile, KOPA= to borrow) stems from making solar products affordable to low-income households on a pay-per-use installment plan.
Customers acquire solar systems for a small deposit and then purchase daily usage “credits” for Kshs 40, or less than the price of traditional kerosene lighting. After one year of payments customers own their solar systems outright and can upgrade to more power.
All revenues are collected in real-time via mobile money systems (such as M-PESA in Kenya) and embedded GSM sensors in each solar system allow M-KOPA to monitor real time performance and regulate usage based upon payments.
This connected design means that M-KOPA is processing vast amounts of data (i.e. over 10,000 mobile payments per day) via the company’s proprietary cloud platform, M-KOPAnet.
As of January 2015 M-KOPA employs over 500 full time staff across East Africa and sells through a network of 1,000 direct sales agents. It has also commenced licensing its technology to partners in other markets.
M-KOPA has been recognised for its pioneering business mode and scale, notably winning the 2015 Zayed Future Energy Prize, being selected as the top New Energy Pioneer at the 2014 Bloomberg New Energy Finance awards and earning the 2013 FT/IFC Excellence in Sustainable Finance Award.
Role Profile
Key Accountabilities
- Responsible for ensuring that applications have 99.999% availability
- Manage and meet all customer internal OLAs and external SLAs
- Resolve application related support issues
- Respond to any related user issue
Incumbent Requirements
Education: Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
Experience:
- Experience working with virtual servers
- Demonstrated Windows Server administration skills
- Demonstrated SQL Server database querying skills
- Strong analytical and problem troubleshooting skills
- Creating tools to fix bugs or deliver operational capabilities
- Knowledge working with monitoring tools such as PRTG
- At least 1 year experience in performing in a similar role
- Good understanding of network protocols and services
- Solid understanding of application layer
- Experience running with web hosted applications on IIS
- Basic knowledge of programming languages
- Ability to effectively communicate and work closely with M-KOPA staff to determine needs and assist with system requirements
- Training and documentation of all work arounds\bug fixes
- Attend to support tickets on our service desk system
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Knowledge / Skills:
- Windows Server 2012, SQL Server 2012, ASP.NET and\or C#
Beneficial:
- Experience working with messaging queue systems will be considered a plus
- MCSE certification will be considered a plus
- Scripting skills will be considered a plus
Remuneration: A generous and competitive remuneration package will be offered to the successful candidate/s.
How to Apply
To apply, send an updated detailed copy of your CV and a cover letter expressing why you feel you would be an excellent candidate for the role to careers@m-kopa.com with the subject EV-ASE-2055
Deadline for applications for Midnight on Sunday 13th December, 2015.
Please Note: Due to the large number of applications received by us, we regret that you will not be contacted unless you are short listed for the post and invited for an interview.
Therefore, if you have not heard from M-KOPA within 4 weeks of the date of the deadline your application, you should assume that you have not been successful on this occasion.
This measure has been taken in the interests of efficiency and cost effectiveness and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.