Manara is a social impact startup whose mission is to unlock the human potential of the Middle East & North Africa, uplifting the region's economy and diversifying the global tech sector, with a focus on women. We are experienced founders, operators, and technologists with leading investors (including Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Stripe, Y Combinator, Seedcamp) and advisers from Andela, Lambda School, and Honeypot.

This region has a rapidly growing population and a highly educated, diverse population. But nobody has cracked the puzzle of employment: college graduates face the highest youth unemployment in the world. Women are particularly impacted: in Palestine, 52% of computer science students are women, but 83% of them are unemployed. We run an entirely remote solution to identify the top talent, familiarize them with interviewing approaches, vet them, and find them amazing jobs (whether remote or on-site). It works: at Google 71% of our referrals in our last batch were hired. 

We don’t stop at job placement. Our vision is to build the top tech talent community in this region and support them at each stage in their lifecycle: how to get a promotion, become a manager, be the first woman engineer on a team, etc. The community is driven by a tech product that facilitates connection, shared learning, and motivation.

To achieve our ambitious vision, we’re seeking a Talent Manager / Career Coach. 

Your mission will be to ensure that all of our success training participants get world-class jobs. After they graduate from our rigorous 4-month training program and passed our intense vetting, you will support them during their job hunt. This includes teaching them about the process of reaching out to companies, connecting them to mentors to help them prepare for interviews, coaching them when they get nervous, and working closely with our sales team to make excellent matches between our participants and our hiring partners.

In addition, you will continuously explore innovative ways to scale this process. Imagine a future in which the Middle East & North Africa has a thriving economy with unlimited job opportunities. It all starts with placing 100 software engineers in the next 12 months. How might we go from 100 per year to 1,000 per year, without growing our team?

We are an early-stage startup with a 6-person team which means we have a lot of leeway to shape our roles to best fit our individual interests. If you see a different way you’d like to contribute to our team, please get in touch. 

Note: Diverse candidates often screen themselves out of job applications if they don’t have all the qualifications. Please apply if you’re excited about the role - we’d love to see your application!

• People/service-oriented: In this role you will be closely working with 40+ job hunters at all given times. You love working with people directly & serving them with excellence. 

• Coaching acumen: People trust you and your guidance. You listen closely, have high empathy, and can help them figure out what’s best for them. You encourage & champion them.

• Enthusiasm for tech/software engineers: You will be supporting software engineers with their job hunt. Thus, you should love spending time with software engineers, and not be scared of technology terms. For example, you will need to learn what technical skills are similar (e.g., Javascript and Typescript) so that you can make good matches between our participants and our hiring partners.

• Execution/project management: As a small startup, we depend heavily on each person to be reliable and effective. You get things done efficiently and accurately, with little need for supervision. You can set up the systems you need to track the 40+ job hunters you are supporting and remember what needs to be done.

• Collaboration/team player: You can work effectively with other people at Manara. For example, you partner closely with our sales leader who manages our hiring partner network to make matches between our participants and companies. You collaborate with our training/program manager to develop new training programs based on what you see posing challenges for our job hunters.  You roll up your sleeves to do the unglamorous work or support a team member when needed.  

• Growth mentality: You love learning, are open to feedback, and can quickly learn new things. 

Knock our socks off:

These are not critical, but would be particularly helpful if you are applying at a manager or director level:

• Recruitment/talent industry: You have experience in the recruitment/talent industry (especially for software engineers) and can thus hit the ground running and grow our own team’s expertise in this area.

• Management: You have excellent management skills. You can effectively recruit, train, and manage a best-in-class talent rep team. 

• Product strategy: You have great ideas about how to go from placing 100 engineers per year to 1000, without growing our team. You collaborate effectively with engineers and designers. 

• European expertise: You have a deep understanding of the European tech sector (from startups through large enterprises) and are well-networked there

• MENA expertise: You speak Arabic or are familiar with the Middle East & North Africa

• Remote: You have experience working on effective remote teams & thrive in such environments. You work well across time zones (e.g., you communicate effectively via asynchronous oral & verbal channels).

• Ambiguity: You are comfortable with the ambiguity & change that naturally occurs at an early-stage startup. In fact, you view it as an opportunity to leave your mark!

• Passion for Manara’s mission of creating a community that unlocks the full potential of top tech talent in MENA (with a focus on Palestine & women)