Program Manager, Tanzania
Educate!Who We Are!
🌍 Africa has the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population. By 2035, the continent is poised to contribute more young people to the global workforce each year than the rest of the world combined.
At Educate! we're obsessed with impact. We leverage iterative learning to build highly scalable youth employment solutions aimed at unlocking the potential of the world’s youngest continent.
Educate! prepares youth in Africa to learn, earn and thrive in today’s economy by:
- Introducing an employment-focused school subject into secondary and
- Delivering livelihood boot camps for out-of-school youth, with a focus on marginalized rural girls and young women.
To date, more than 500,000 youth have been meaningfully impacted across Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania, and along the way, Educate! has become the largest youth employment and skills provider in East Africa.
Educate! is a team of over 300 largely African staff and 300 volunteer youth mentors. We prioritize building an engaging, fulfilling and growth oriented work environment. 50% of our top 30 leaders have been with us for over 5 years, 10+ alumni have started their own organizations, and 6 current or former team members were Acumen Fund East Africa fellows.
We have been backed by top foundations such as Imaginable Futures, Livelihood Impact Fund, Jack Dorsey’s #startsmall, CIFF and Echidna Giving. Educate! won a 2018 Klaus J. Jacobs Prize and a 2015 WISE Award, and has been highlighted by the World Bank’s S4YE's Impact Portfolio, an Al Jazeera documentary, BBC, The Brookings Institution as one of 14 case studies on scaling education, and the Gates Foundation as a Goalkeepers Accelerator. In 2022, we received a catalytic investment from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott to scale our systems change work.
Educate!'s long-term vision is to design solutions that measurably impact millions of youth across Africa each year.
Good to note: To Our Awesome Applicants! 🚀💫
We know that incredible candidates sometimes hesitate to apply if they don’t meet every requirement. If this role excites you, we encourage you to apply!
We’re looking for passionate individuals who believe in our mission and can bring unique perspectives to our team—not just those who check every box. We value diversity and strongly encourage women and individuals from all backgrounds to apply.
Position Overview
Educate!, the largest youth skills service provider in East Africa is seeking a dynamic, strategic, and high-performing Program Manager in Tanzania, to lead the delivery of our growing school-based programs at a national scale. As we expand to reach more districts, regions, and thousands of youth, this role requires a leader who can combine strategic execution, rigorous performance management, operational excellence, and a strong stakeholder engagement lens.
The Program Manager is responsible for the strategic planning, high-quality implementation, and continuous improvement of Educate!'s programs. This includes leading a high-performing program team, managing significant budgets, using data to drive decision-making, and ensuring exceptional outcomes for schools and youth across the country.
This role demands someone who is results-oriented, learns quickly, solves problems proactively, navigates complexity with ease, and drives execution relentlessly. As we scale, this role becomes central to ensuring consistency, quality, and impact across increasingly large and diverse operating environments.
What You Will Do:
Finance and Budget Management
- Lead development and management of large-scale program budgets, ensuring efficient allocation aligned to organizational priorities and program expansion needs.
- Maintain rigorous financial controls by reviewing and approving all program-related requisitions and accountabilities, ensuring accuracy, compliance, and value for money.
- Conduct monthly and quarterly BVAs and use insights to inform strategic decisions, optimize spending, and ensure continuous alignment between budget and implementation realities.
- Ensure all financial processes are documented, standardized, and audit-ready as the program grows to scale.
Program Strategic Implementation
- Own the end-to-end strategic implementation of Educate!’s programs at scale, ensuring alignment with product teams, government partners, and internal stakeholders.
- In collaboration with the Head of Program Implementation, lead termly planning and execution cycles: define priorities, set targets, track progress weekly, and proactively identify and resolve bottlenecks.
- Use data insights to drive decisions, refine implementation strategies, and continuously improve program quality, consistency, and efficiency across regions.
- Develop and optimize tools, systems, processes, and workflows that enable high-quality execution in a rapidly growing and evolving environment.
- Conduct field visits to assess fidelity, performance, and school experience, ensuring implementation meets Educate!’s high standards across all locations.
Team Performance Management
- Manage and develop a high-performing program team, ensuring clarity of expectations, consistent feedback, and continuous skill growth.
- Drive a strong performance culture characterized by accountability, ownership, and results.
- Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, coaching sessions, and termly planning sessions with team members.
- Address performance challenges promptly and constructively, and ensure strong succession planning and talent development as the team and program scale.
- Build systems, habits, and ways of working that help teams execute with consistency, speed, and high standards.
- Anticipate staffing needs as the program scales and support recruitment, onboarding, and professional development.
Team Culture Management
- Demonstrate the org culture and cultural tenets through professional behavior and leadership
- Model Educate!’s cultural tenets daily by fostering an environment of openness, trust, collaboration, and high expectations.
- Build a positive, inclusive, high-performance team culture that supports innovation, continuous learning, and professional growth.
- Encourage open communication, constructive feedback, and team participation in decision-making.
- Proactively address issues related to team morale, conflict, communication, and workload balance.
District and Local Government Engagement
- Strengthen and expand relationships with regional, district, and school-level government stakeholders to support optimal program implementation and long-term sustainability.
- Attend key meetings, represent Educate!, and ensure alignment with regional and district priorities.
- Conduct routine assessments to identify gaps and opportunities across program locations, using insights to inform implementation strategy.
- Serve as a trusted partner, ensuring Educate!’s work is well understood, appreciated, and supported by stakeholders across all levels.
- Ensure all engagements are compliant, well-documented, and feed into strategic planning processes.
Who You Are:
You have at least 4 years of program management experience, ideally within medium to large-scale organizations, where you have led teams to deliver strong results and exceed targets. You have a proven track record of managing budgets and financial processes with precision, and you use data to drive informed decisions and improve program outcomes. With your excellent communication, stakeholder management, and problem-solving skills, you will navigate complex challenges and build strong partnerships. Holding a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a related field, you will step into a role where your expertise and leadership make a real impact. You fit our Five Cultural Tenets (see below); Learn more by looking at Educate!’s culture deck here
Terms
The location is in Dar es salaam, Tanzania with frequent travel to program locations.
What We Offer 💼
- A vibrant, mission-driven environment with a supportive and fun team.
- Competitive salary based on experience.
- Learning & growth opportunities
Application Process: Rolling basis, interviews happening soon!
Our Culture & Tenets(Values) 🌱
We’re ambitious. Are you? Educate! is growing fast, so new opportunities are opening up and expanding all the time. We’re inspired by people with drive, and we love to help them reach their full potential. We expect everyone at Educate! to contribute above and beyond their job description, grow their skills, and advance their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey of their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey.
- We put Youth First, Impact-Obsessed - We are purpose-driven, focused on impact, and prioritize what truly matters. We listen to youth, design our efforts around their needs, and ensure every dollar creates transformative experiences they value.
- We Exceed Expectations - We take pride in going above and beyond to achieve the best results—proactively identifying problems and seeking solutions without waiting or stopping at what's requested.
- We Are Always Learning - We are committed to seeking and applying new knowledge and ideas. We stay open-minded and continuously try new things, experiment, grow, and improve. We invest in learning for ourselves and our teams.
- We are One Team, Many Views - We value all individuals, believe diverse ideas and open dialogue drive excellence, foster a supportive and respectful environment where everyone can freely express themselves. We work as one team and prioritize the organization's mission over personal or team interests.
- We have the Startup Mindset - We innovate relentlessly to grow our impact, we never think “we have arrived” or “we’re done.”We constantly challenge the status quo, embrace change, and move quickly toward our vision. Unafraid of failure, we question anything that hinders progress.
Every person at Educate! — from interns to the executive director — is evaluated by how they live up to these five cultural tenets. They are at the core of how we achieve our mission and why we work as well as we do. Educate is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all who interact in our community. In creating this environment, we encourage people from a variety of cultures, backgrounds and life experiences to join our diverse team.
We’re committed to ensuring all candidates are screened for child and youth safety. As part of the process, you’ll need to provide a Certificate of Good Conduct. Educate! reserves the right to withdraw employment offers if any risks to youth are identified.