Senior Engineering Program Manager

About Okra

At Okra Solar, we’re on a mission to bring Power to the People by unlocking opportunities through energy access for everyone in the world.

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Over 650 million people still live without electricity. At a time where technology such as mobile devices, productive agritech and AI are becoming more accessible than ever, we believe that access to energy is the first step toward opportunity and growth.

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That’s why we build our Mesh Grid technology that energizes off-grid households at a fraction of the cost of the other solutions. We provide the entire solution, including the hardware and software, that we sell to local energy companies who deploy our tech to deliver affordable, reliable electricity as a service to last-mile communities.

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We’ve deployed 2MW+ of solar PV energizing ~50,000 people, and we’re scaling fast under Nigeria’s $750M World Bank-funded DARES program, with equipment for another 150,000 people in manufacturing now, and new markets opening in Mozambique and Madagascar.

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Role Overview

As a Senior Engineering Program Manager your superpower is ensuring plans, timelines, and dependencies are mapped out in advance. You’re comfortable in dealing with engineers as you are with customer-level stakeholders, and you understand their competing priorities. You appreciate that long-term hardware development benefits from well-thought planning and problem anticipation, but you can also adapt when the plan changes.

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In this role you would lead cross-functional engineering teams in the development and delivery of our next-generation Mesh-grid architecture and hardware. We’re designing for higher performance (large productive loads, flexible power for every household, and grid interoperability) while cutting our cost per connection. This is going to have a staggering impact on the ecosystem, and drive our impact and business growth upwards by 2-3x.

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The program is cross-functional and long-cycle. It spans hardware, firmware, software, supply chain, external consultants, contract manufacturing, Nigerian regulators (NERC, REA, NEMSA), field pilots and commercial launch. We’re committing to a gated EVT → DVT → PVT → mass production program, hitting scales of hundres of thousands of units in 2029 and beyond.

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We are hiring this role because coordination is the bottleneck. Every missed long lead time item extends the critical path and puts the whole project at risk.

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Responsibilities

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Project Leadership & Coordination

• Run the EVT, DVT, PVT and MP gate reviews: define exit criteria with each function, collect evidence, chair the review, record the decision.
• Build and own the integrated master schedule, manage complex technical product development dependencies, with the critical path visible at all times.
• Keep the gated process intact under deadline pressure.
• Coordinate between varied seniority engineers in a range of specialized technical disciplines, including: electronic, electrical systems, firmware, mechanical, power systems, quality control, field test & repair, full stack development

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Technical Planning

• Work with lead engineers to break down complex development projects and architectures into manageable work breakdown, concrete scope and deliverables
• Coordinate required resourcing with managers and tech leads
• Raising / challenging trade-offs, requiring solid technical and business context

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Stakeholder Engagement

• Manage internal/external stakeholder dependencies and commitments
• Align with product managers and technical leads to ensure needs and schedules are met
• Track sourcing and third-party consultants (reliability testing, design support, certification, off-the-shelf sourcing, etc..) to clear scope and deliverables

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Project Management Technical Skills

• Defining and owning project-level or system-level plans, timelines, budgets, artifacts. Able to report on this to leadership.
• Traceable actions, deliverables, and deadlines, with clear ownership defined and chased to completion
• Assist in logistics tasks to remove roadblocks from the team, including support on quick prototype ordering, planning key engineering travel, and samples shipping.

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Hard Skills and Required Experience

• 5+ years in program or technical program management, at least 3 of them on hardware products taken through EVT/DVT/PVT to mass production
  • Experience with contract manufacturing, preferably in China
• Enough technical depth and engineering background to read a schematic-level architecture, follow a firmware critical path and challenge an estimate.
• Ability to flesh out a long-term schedule and its key milestones and risks, representing it via Gantt charts and critical path analysis
• Ran a program through certification or regulatory approval (CE, UL/IEC, metering or utility approvals)
• Built and owned a program budget, and reported to executives or leadership
• Clear, direct written communication. Can clearly say a date is slipping early and explain why.
• Proficiency with project management tools (Airtable, Jira, Asana, Linear, or similar)

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Soft Skills

• Excellent communication skills and ability to work with a cross-cultural, cross-time zone team
• Collaborative mindset: Ability to work effectively with others, lifting teammates up, learning together, and sharing wins and failures
• Balanced drive: Passionate about your work while maintaining a healthy pace to avoid burnout and sustain excellence
• Transparency and openness: Open to sharing and receiving ideas and feedback candidly
• Integrity and respect: Ability to make ethical decisions even during challenges, acting with honesty and respect
• Patience and coaching: A willingness to listen, help upskill, and bring people along through times of change

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Growth Opportunities

• Working with a Okra’s senior leadership team and extensive network of mentors and advisors (Schneider Electric, AtOne Ventures, Apple)

• Owning higher level program management at the company-wide operations level

• Opportunity to directly impact engineering processes, product strategy, and company strategy