Lead AI Engineer - Financial Inclusion

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We're hiring our first Lead AI Engineer to lead a team that designs, ships, and scales automations and AI agents across M-KOPA. This is a brand-new team within the business - the tech foundation is already proven, and now we need someone to lead it, scale it, and define what it becomes.

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The Impact

Your automations and agents will directly improve how 2,300+ employees work across our global operations. We've already helped over 7 million customers access over $2 billion in credit - and the tools you build will help that mission scale further and faster. It's your chance to be part of something that's literally transforming lives across an entire continent 🌍

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The Opportunity

• 🎯 Mission-driven engineering: Every automation you build helps internal teams and customer-facing staff deliver financial inclusion to Africa's Every Day Earners
• 🏆 Global recognition: Join a company named by TIME 100 as one of the world's most influential and by the Financial Times as Africa's fastest-growing for 4 consecutive years (2022–2025)
• 🚀 Scale challenges: 2,500+ employees across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, the UK, and Europe - internal teams that can't scale by hiring forever need intelligent tooling that actually works
• 🌱 Environmental impact: We're carbon-negative, having displaced over 2 million tonnes of emissions

What You'll Do

At M-KOPA, you'll lead the AI Ops team from day one - owning delivery, growing the function, and proving the value. Your team builds automations and agents for internal use and serves as internal consultants, helping Software Engineering teams integrate AI into customer-facing products. Join us in combining cutting-edge AI tooling with purpose-driven work that makes digital and financial inclusion possible across Africa.

Your key responsibilities

• Lead two AI Ops Engineers — own their delivery, development, and day-to-day work
• Prioritise efficiently — manage competing requests from multiple teams by applying a clear prioritisation framework you'll help develop and improve
• Build and ship automations and agents that measurably improve how internal teams and customer-facing staff work
• Keep the AI tooling stack healthy as usage scales across 2,500+ employees
• Stay current on emerging AI tools and technologies - know what's hype and what's actually useful
• Help refine AI training for the wider organisation, including Software Engineering teams

Technical Environment 💻

• AI & Agentic Frameworks: Claude, Claude Code, Anthropic tooling, LangChain, MCP, Google ADK (or similar agentic tooling)
• Automation & Prototyping: Scripting, workflow tools, AI-assisted development, rapid prototyping (Vercel/Railway)
• Enterprise Tooling: Identity automation (Entra), internal platforms, Notion, HiBob integrations
• Existing Foundation: Twelve months of Claude, Notion, HiBob, and Entra automations already running in production

Our Approach

• Build, don't just advise — this is a hands-on team that ships working automations and agents
• Prove the value, then expand — start with two engineers, demonstrate impact, grow from there
• Product-focused mindset — treat internal teams as customers and build tooling that works
• Cut through the hype — evaluate emerging AI tools on practical value, not marketing buzz

What You Need

We're looking for someone with a strong technical background and product-focused. You won't be building models - we have Data Science teams for that. You'll be building agents, shipping automations, and leading a team that makes M-KOPA's internal operations smarter and faster.

Required Experience

• Hands-on experience building automations — scripting, workflow tools, or AI-assisted development
• Hands-on experience building agents using agentic frameworks — LangChain, MCP, Google ADK or similar
• Background in enterprise tooling — rapid prototyping tools (Vercel/Railway), identity automation (Entra), or internal platforms
• People leadership experience — you've led or mentored engineers and can own a team's delivery and development

Why This Role?

This is a brand new team within the business, reporting to the Director of Security. The tech stack is proven - twelve months of Claude, Notion, HiBob, and Entra automations already running. The team structure is what's new. That's yours to shape. You'll start with two engineers. Prove the value. Expand from there.

The problems are complex. 2,500+ employees across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, the UK, and Europe. Internal teams that can't scale by hiring forever. Customer-facing staff who need tools that actually work.

M-KOPA provides affordable financial and digital products to underserved communities across Africa - unlocking access to smartphones, credit, and insurance for millions of people. The automations and agents you build don't just save time internally - they help that mission reach more people.

If you want to decide how AI actually gets used at scale across a growing fintech – this is the opportunity

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Location & Benefits

• 🌍 Fully remote role within UTC -1 to UTC +3 time zones
• 🤝 Work with diverse teams across UK, Europe, and Africa
• 📚 Professional development programmes and coaching partnerships
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family-friendly policies and flexible working arrangements
• 💚 Well-being support and career growth opportunities

Our Mission 🌍

We create financial inclusion for the traditionally excluded through a fair, flexible, customer-centric financing model. We strive to drive greater inclusion of women, youth, and low-income communities.

Our Impact 💚

Our technology has created measurable change

• Connected 📱: 2.5 million first-time smartphone users connected
• Prosperous 💰: 70% of customers use M-KOPA products for income generation, with 35,000+ livelihoods created for agents
• Green 🌱: 2.1 million tonnes of CO₂ avoided through clean energy products, with over 127,700 circular economy products provided

Ready to lead a brand-new AI team - shipping agents and automations that drive real-world financial inclusion?

Apply Now

WHY M-KOPA?

At M-KOPA, we empower our people to own their careers through diverse development programs, coaching partnerships, and on-the-job training. We support individual journeys with family-friendly policies, prioritize well-being, and embrace flexibility.

Join us in shaping the future of M-KOPA as we grow together. Explore more at m-kopa.com http://m-kopa.com.

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Recognized four times by the Financial Times as one Africa's fastest growing companies (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026) and by TIME100 Most influential companies in the world 2023 and 2024 , we've served over 7 million customers, unlocking $1.5 billion in cumulative credit for the unbanked across Africa.

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Important Notice

M-KOPA is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer committed to assembling a diverse, broadly trained staff. Women, minorities, and people with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.

M-KOPA explicitly prohibits the use of Forced or Child Labour and respects the rights of its employees to agree to terms and conditions of employment voluntarily, without coercion, and freely terminate their employment on appropriate notice. M-KOPA shall ensure that its Employees are of legal working age and shall comply with local laws for youth employment or student work, such as internships or apprenticeships.

M-KOPA does not collect/charge any money as a pre-employment or post-employment requirement. This means that we never ask for ‘recruitment fees’, ‘processing fees’, ‘interview fees’, or any other kind of money in exchange for offer letters or interviews at any time during the hiring process.

Applications for this position will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Shortlisting and interviews will take place at any stage during the recruitment process. We reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a suitable candidate is selected before the advertised closing date.

If your application is successful M-KOPA undertakes pre-employment background checks as part of its recruitment process, these include; criminal records, identification verification, academic qualifications, employment dates and employer references.