Senior Engagement Lead

Type: Full-time contractor (hours negotiable)

Location: Remote, Africa time-zone required (preference for Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Rwanda, or Ethiopia)

OpenFn is an open-source digital public good and a key building block for next generation digital public infrastructure. Government digital transformation teams use it to safely connect web apps, AI tools, registries, and legacy systems to automate the delivery of public services in a secure, stable, scalable way. In an age of AI-driven atrophy, OpenFn builds government muscle and increases country’s agency to chart their own digital futures.

Our team, Open Function Group, is the primary steward of this software platform. We are a team of IT and data integration specialists that provide the software, training, and technical support to help partners in 40+ countries automate mission-critical workflows.

We’re a fully-remote team that uses cutting edge technologies to drive efficiency where it matters most. We believe that too much brainpower is spent making marginal improvements to already comfortable lives, and are committed instead to helping the global majority expand their own horizons through technological empowerment.

We are seeking an experienced Senior Engagement Lead to work directly with our government counterparts, in-country implementing partners, fellow DPGs for DPI, and multilateral development banks to identify, qualify, and help architect powerful, national-scale projects that impact millions of lives and empower countries to succeed in their digital transformation initiatives on their own terms. In this role, you will sell and then run end-to-end implementations.

This role uniquely combines strategic partnership development with hands-on engagement leadership. You’ll spend roughly half your time identifying and shaping new opportunities across the DPI ecosystem, and the other half running complex implementation projects—owning client relationships and ensuring engagements deliver high-quality outcomes on scope, budget, and timeline.

A workflow/AI orchestration platform is an essential component of national-scale DPI (see: CDPI’s DPI-AI Framework; DPI in the AI Era) yet in 2025 many implementations took costly shortcuts, either hard-coding brittle, unmaintainable point-to-point integrations or leaving new investments isolated from key country systems.

Your role is to prevent this. You’ll be working hand-in-hand with our CEO to ensure that new DPG for DPI implementations employ a workflow/AI orchestration layer, and you’ll own these engagements from initial opportunity through successful delivery via our implementation team or partner implementers.

Strategic Partnership & Opportunity Development (60%)

• Manage key relationships across the DPI ecosystem, mapping out upcoming country needs (governments), DPI implementations (local SIs and DPGs), and funding priorities (MDBs) to identify critical workflow/AI orchestration platform requirements
• Identify and qualify new national-scale projects where workflow/AI orchestration is essential
• Connect partners to appropriate technology providers (inside and outside of Open Function Group) to ensure their DPG4DPI needs are met
• Shape opportunities by helping architect solutions and positioning OpenFn’s capabilities
• Interact closely with leaders on our core product and services teams to align on feature roadmap decisions and country service & support initiatives
• Represent OpenFn at industry events, on working groups, and in stakeholder meetings

Engagement Leadership & Project Delivery (40%)

• Own the client relationship as the primary point of contact and trusted advisor for active engagements that you helped source
• Oversee end-to-end delivery for 1-2 projects from scoping through implementation and handoff, ensuring projects deliver on scope, budget, and timeline
• Lead cross-functional delivery teams (project managers, technical architects, developers, implementation specialists) and coordinate with in-country implementers
• Drive project governance including status reporting, risk management, change management, and stakeholder alignment
• Manage project profitability and identify expansion opportunities within existing accounts
  

While this is not a software engineering role, the nature of these large, complex, digital public infrastructure projects and the diversity of the stakeholders involved means that you’ll be required to communicate clearly about both policy-level issues (e.g., how ID, payments, or data exchange systems impact welfare in developing countries) and technical issues (e.g., the difference between securely exposing an API with X-Road, and automating a public service that calls that API with OpenFn).

Your success will be measured by the number of new DPI projects you’re able to develop and deliver successfully.

• 8+ years of experience working with data or technology in AI, Process/Workflow Automation, Data Integration, Technology Consulting, Business Analysis, Data Management, Data Analysis, Software Development, or Systems Administration
• 2+ years of experience in partnerships, sales, business development, or account management, preferably within a technology-focused organization
• Experience in the international development, Digital Public Goods, or Digital Public Infrastructure sector
• Excellent written and verbal communication, negotiation, interpersonal, and presentation skills, with the ability to articulate complex concepts clearly and persuasively to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Familiarity with popular business & government software systems (e.g., databases, registries, CRMs, business intelligence tools, BPMN systems) and the willingness to engage technically with unfamiliar applications or databases
• Ability to work from home or a shared office space with fast, stable internet, preferably in a country that is located in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Rwanda, or Ethiopia (available to work in Africa time zones).
• Fluency in English

• Experience working in government or in a country digital transformation unit
• Experience with AI orchestration, agentic system design, or AI policy
• Experience with business process analysis, documentation, and workflow modeling using standard notations (e.g., BPMN, UML)
• Experience with data integration, REST APIs, ETL processes and tools, workflow automation, data systems design, data management, and/or systems administration
• Experience writing technical specifications
• Working proficiency in French or Spanish

• Financial compensation is commensurate with experience

• Flexible working schedule with a fully remote team (including regular meetups across Europe and Africa)
• Exposure to hottest industry and technology trends across GovTech
• Opportunity for leadership development, career advancement, and strategic influence
• The opportunity to impact millions of lives through open source software in a small, mission-driven organization

To apply, write a very good cover letter. It doesn't need to be long. But it's got to be so good, in fact, that it stands out from all the “perfect” AI slop and gives us a small glimpse (a very small one, for you are not your cover letter) of how wonderful the real you is.