HR Systems Lead

**HR Systems Lead**: Canada; Ghana; Kenya; Spain; United Kingdom - View all jobs

**Our mission**:
We're making Africa the first cashless continent.

In 2017, over half the population in Sub-Saharan Africa had no bank account. That's for good reason—the fees are too high, the closest branch can be miles away, and nobody takes cards. Without access to financial institutions, people are forced to keep their savings under the mattress. Small business owners rely on lenders who charge extortionate rates. Parents spend hours waiting in line to pay school fees in cash.

We're solving this by building financial services that just work: no account fees, instantly available, and accepted everywhere. In places where electricity, water and roads don't always work, you can still send money with Wave. In 2017, we launched a mobile app in Senegal for cash deposit, withdrawal, and peer-to-peer and business payments. Now, we have millions of users across six countries and are growing fast.

Our goal is to make Africa the first cashless continent and that's where you come in...

**How you'll help us achieve it**:
Wave is now the largest financial institution in Senegal, with over 7 million users, and we’re still in the early days of our product roadmap and potential impact on people’s everyday lives.

We are looking for an HR Systems Lead who will be responsible for driving the development and implementation of HR solutions that prioritize employee engagement, satisfaction, and productivity.

In this role, you'll:

- Collaborate across all People Operation divisions to understand and prioritize product requirements for our existing tech stack.
- Ensure or improve our workflows to automate as much as possible, reduce manual labor, and increase access to analytics and data insights.
- Lead the development and implementation of HR software solutions, and possibly cross-functional ones, too, from concept to delivery.
- Gather feedback from end-users and stakeholders to inform product enhancements and iterations, focusing on increasing automation and user satisfaction.
- Champion a user-centric approach to software solutions that leverage design thinking principles to empathize with various and sometimes conflicting stakeholders.
- Drive the development of self-service tools and process automation capabilities to streamline HR processes, reduce administrative burdens, and empower employees to manage their own HR needs.
- Develop and monitor key metrics and analytics to evaluate process performance, measure impact, and identify areas for optimization.
- Own vendor management, including representing Wave to account managers, contract management and negotiation, and optimizing spend.

**Key Details**:

- Wave covers travel once per year to one of our operating countries in Africa, as well as a yearly stipend of $1200 to meet with coworkers.
- We run performance reviews twice a year and award bonuses or promotions to strong performers who have been with the company for more than six months.
- Our salaries are competitive and are calculated using a transparent formula.
- Major benefits:
- Subsidized health insurance for you and your dependents and retirement contributions (both vary from country to country).
- 6 months of fully paid parental leave and subsidized fertility assistance.
- Flexible vacation, with most folks taking between 30-40 days per year.
- $10,000 annual charitable donation matching.

**Requirements**:

- Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Computer Science, or a related field.
- 5+ years of experience in IT or HR Technology, with a focus on employee experience, software solution rollouts and customer support.
- Intermediate to advanced SQL experience.
- Proven experience in product ownership or product management, with a focus on system lifecycle management — including selection, implementation, optimization, and ongoing assessment using agile practices.
- Experience designing and improving workflows to automate processes, enhance data integrity, and tailor off-the-shelf tools to meet specific business needs.
- Advanced knowledge of HR systems (HRIS, ATS, Payroll) and a strong ability to translate complex business requirements into customized and actionable product features and strategies.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence cross-functional teams.

**You might be a good fit if you**:

- Speak French or are interested in learning French.
- Have experience pairing with engineering teams to write product designs and translate them into design specs.
- Are excessively detail-oriented and seek to achieve excellence in everything you do.
- Are a self-starter and proactive about achieving ambitious targets.
- Are willing to travel to Wave office locations in Africa to co-work with operational teams.
- Can communicate clearly with colleagues who work, speak and think differently.
- Can easily default to over-communication and overreaching wh