Wefarm is the world’s largest platform connecting the small-scale farming community. Millions of farmers, retailers, and brands come together on Wefarm to grow their businesses.

Small-scale farming is one of the largest and most important industries in the world, with over one billion people globally involved in it. We’re working towards connecting this community so small-scale farmers can gain a better position in global agricultural supply chains. Some of the world’s leading VCs are backing us on this mission, including True Ventures in Silicon Valley.

Since our launch in 2015, we’ve grown to serve over two million farmers across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Our platform has facilitated the (free) exchange of over 18 million messages to share knowledge, generated over $5 million in marketplace sales, and sold nearly half a million products. So far, we’ve partnered with 100+ brands to give our members fair prices on the quality products they are looking for.

Our next milestone is to have 100 million farmers benefiting from Wefarm. Join us and be part of our mission to build an ecosystem for global agriculture, with the farmer at the centre.

The Role

We are looking for a passionate, user centric UX Lead. Someone who delights in the entire user experience and brings others on that journey with them.

The Wefarm community is based in East Africa and is currently SMS based, but you will help design and contribute to our first digital platform. We are working on the next generation of the user experience and testing directly with our users to determine what this digital community could look like. As the UX Lead, you’ll also provide creative solutions to challenges that come with working in emerging markets, such as access to data and connection speeds.

You will be responsible for the UX/UI function within the company. This will include communicating with various level stakeholders, making sure research is prioritised based on company needs, mentoring juniors within the team, leading ceremonies and evolving/growing our UX function accordingly.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain empathy for and knowledge of our Wefarm community members across the company
• Work closely with Product Managers and product development squads, supporting with UX research and designing solutions for the problems they are working on
• Manage, develop and encourage the skills of the Product Designers in the company
• Guide the team to focus on what matters. Be the connection between company priorities, stakeholders and the UX/UI team
• Establish the UX function according to plan, including making sure workload is shared evenly, leading the creation of UX team OKRs, and running UX team ceremonies, evolving them as needed
• Use advanced and exploratory research to identify potential areas of improvement / potential competitive advantage

• Ability to communicate effectively at all levels, collaborate to solve problems, present designs and sell solutions, and keep colleagues informed
• Can collaborate with stakeholders, Product Managers and Development teams to iterate on existing products, and design new functionality
• Supervise and support the creation of user flows, wireframes, interface mockups and final UI designs which synthesize user data and research
• Extensive UX design background working on various projects, e-commerce / communities (e.g. social media or forums) experience is a plus
• Previous experience of leading, mentoring or managing a team
• Strong portfolio is a must

Rewards package and remuneration

*** Please note this is a Fixed Term Contract role lasting 10 months acting as Maternity cover. ***

The total rewards package and remuneration will be based on experience and potential, but is highly competitive. We believe in our team being not only the executors of Wefarm’s visions but the makers and owners of it!

As a global business, travel is essential to who we are (when permitted), and will be a perk of the job. We also host an annual whole company offsite (Wecamp), previously held in Kenya and Uganda. We're hoping to continue this very soon. In addition, we have a generous pension package, flexible working environment (within reason of course!), and we value spending time together.

We will review applicants on an ongoing basis, unfortunately we will only be able to respond to shortlisted candidates.