About Imagine Worldwide 

All children have immense potential, but hundreds of millions don’t have access to the learning they need. Imagine Worldwide’s mission is to empower millions of children across Sub-Saharan Africa with the literacy and numeracy skills they need to reach their full potential. We provide a tablet-based, personalized learning solution designed for the most challenging environments. Nine Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) across multiple countries and settings have shown dramatic learning gains, increased school attendance, and gender parity, all for less than $7 per child per year.

Imagine Worldwide partners with governments, organizations, and communities to provide child-directed, tablet-based learning that is accessible, effective, and affordable. We are a California-based (United States) nonprofit organization operating across seven Sub-Saharan African countries. 

In Malawi, under the BEFIT program, Imagine works with the Malawi Ministry of Education and partners onebillion and VSO, among others, to eventually serve 3.8 million children per year in Standards 1-4 across all 6,000 public primary schools in Malawi. The BEFIT program began rolling out in September 2023 and served 500 schools in Year 1 across 18 districts. Year 2 will serve an additional 460 schools across the remaining 16 education districts in Malawi.

About the Role

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Project Manager will play an instrumental role in coordinating and delivering key projects that enable Imagine's mission to test and scale tablet-based learning solutions. This role manages project implementation across multiple locations, ensures alignment with organizational priorities, and coordinates with government agencies, implementing partners, and internal teams to drive results.

Key Responsibilities

The Project Manager will work closely with Imagine Malawi’s Executive Director and the management team to provide project and operational support. The Project Managers responsibilities will include - but will not be limited to the  following: 

Strategic Project Management

• Support planning, implementation, and monitoring of project activities across assigned districts and partners, ensuring alignment with Imagine’s strategy and government priorities.
• Develop detailed project implementation plans with clear timelines, deliverables, budgets, and M&E indicators.
• Track progress against work plans, budgets, and performance targets, proactively identifying risks and bottlenecks and proposing mitigation actions.
• Coordinate with government education offices, implementing partners, and internal teams to ensure smooth execution of activities at both central and district levels.

Operational Support

• Lead in the development of tools, manuals and training resources needed to ensure successful project implementation. 
• Coordinate and supervise the implementation of all program activities to achieve their outputs
• Conduct relevant research to inform program implementation and disseminate relevant information to relevant stakeholders. 
• Convene, document and follow-up on the outcome of monthly project accountability meetings.

Executive Director Support

• Manage the flow of information for the Executive Director in a timely and accurate manner to support coordination and productivity across the country team.
• Coordinate with internal teams and external stakeholders on behalf of the Executive Director to ensure alignment on priorities and follow-through on key actions.
• Schedule and coordinate meetings for the Executive Director with country teams and partners; assist in the preparation and distribution of meeting agendas and materials.
  Support the Executive Director in coordinating priority initiatives, including tracking actions, timelines, and follow-ups across teams.
• Support the Executive Director in promoting the effective use of collaboration and productivity tools to enable asynchronous work and maximize team efficiency.
• Perform a variety of administrative, coordination, and document preparation tasks to support the Executive Director in managing country operations.

Donor Support

• Prepare comprehensive quarterly reports for management information and decisions. 
• Actively participate in donor review and reflection meetings, and highlight project successes, challenges, and mitigating measures to overcome challenges. 
• Track and monitor compliance with donor requirements and reporting deadlines
• Support board meeting preparation, including agenda development, materials preparation, and follow-up on action items

Requirements

Minimum Qualifications

The successful candidate will possess the following competencies, experiences, and qualities: 

• Bachelor's degree in Project Management, Business Administration, Development Studies, Public Policy, or related field. Project Management Certification  is an added advantage.
• Minimum of 6-8 years of progressive experience in project management, program coordination, operations, or strategy roles within education, international development, or nonprofit sectors
• Strong digital literacy and proficiency with project management tools and methodologies

Ideal Candidate Profile

• Proven track record of managing complex, multi-stakeholder projects from initiation through completion
• Experience working in Malawi or similar contexts, with deep understanding of the education sector and government systems
• A track record of managing large, multi-stakeholder initiatives across community, district, and national levels.
• Strong interpersonal and relationship building skills 
• Results-oriented with strong execution capabilities
• Strategic thinker with ability to translate vision into actionable plans
• Natural coordinator who thrives managing multiple priorities
• Excellent working knowledge of MS Office
• Ability to prioritize and display a high level of adaptability/flexibility while handling job responsibility

Qualities

•  Passion for Imagine’s mission and vision 
•  Demonstrated commitment to equity in educational access and outcomes
• Passion for project management
• Demonstrated ability to think independently and solve problems
• Collaborative team player; clear and proactive communicator
• Flexible, adaptable, and able to work in a fast-paced, changing environment

Location

The Project Manager must be based in Lilongwe, Malawi, with travel to field sites as required. The Project Manager will frequently collaborate and coordinate with the local team and Imagine Global. 

Compensation & Benefits

Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience.

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Imagine Worldwide is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

About Sand

Sand Technologies is a global Physical AI company using data and AI to make critical industries work better. We partner with governments, cities and enterprises to improve how essential systems operate across healthcare, water, energy, telecommunications and infrastructure.

Our work delivers proven real-world impact. We have built AI systems that help manage London’s water supply, supported telecom network planning across hundreds of cities, and developed digital healthcare platforms serving tens of millions of people across Africa. From intelligent command centers to AI-powered infrastructure platforms, we help organizations sense, analyze and act in complex environments.

Our people are ambitious, curious and relentlessly practical. Our teams work alongside clients in the field, solving hard problems and deploying solutions that last. With colleagues across Africa, Europe, the UK and the US, we operate across the full stack - from research and engineering to deployment and capability building.

Our mission is simple: to harness AI to solve humanity’s most pressing challenges.

About the role

Sand is scaling rapidly across Africa, partnering with Ministries of Health to deploy the Health Operating System (HOS) — a decision-support and execution platform that transforms how health systems sense, analyze, and act on data. The HOS is already operational across multiple countries, with plans to expand to 15 countries by end of 2026, supported by 80+ Forward Deployed Engineers.

As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you are the technical spearhead of our client engagement in Malawi. Unlike our roaming FDE roles, this is a permanently embedded position. You will be based full-time within the Ministry of Health in Malawi, becoming a long-term extension of the client's operational team. Your mandate is to build deep institutional relationships, develop comprehensive understanding of the national health system, and deliver sustained value over an extended engagement — not just rapid sprints, but lasting transformation.

This is not staff augmentation. You are an amalgamation of three roles:

1. The Software Engineer — Deep technical acumen to build and deploy production-grade solutions using Sand's product suite
2. The Product Manager — Strategic foresight to understand client problems, influence business objectives, and identify expansion opportunities
3. The Consultant — Client-facing finesse to navigate complex stakeholder relationships, manage scope, and transfer knowledge

Your primary mission is to prove our value fast, delivering functional solutions rapidly using Sand's products, playbooks, and tools, and then maturing those solutions into mission-critical infrastructure that the Ministry depends on daily. Over time, you become the institutional memory of the deployment — the person who understands the data landscape, the stakeholder dynamics, and the operational realities better than anyone.

Who We're Looking For

The Forward Deployed Engineer is a highly ambitious individual. You are someone who is deeply keen on learning — someone who dives in headfirst to solve some of the hardest, most complex problems in global health. You thrive on understanding the technology, understanding the stakeholders, understanding our product suite, and weaving all three together to deliver solutions that change how health systems operate.

This role is not for someone looking for comfort or routine. It is for someone who wants to step outside of their comfort zone, build something they can be proud of, and grow faster than they thought possible. The FDE programme is a career accelerator — an intensive rotation that exposes you to technical depth, strategic thinking, and client leadership in equal measure, all while working on problems that matter for millions of people.

For this permanently embedded role, you also need the maturity and resilience to sustain deep client relationships over months and years — not just weeks. You will become the face of Sand in Malawi, and that requires patience, cultural fluency, and the ability to navigate institutional complexity while maintaining momentum.

Key Responsibilities

Serve as Sand's Permanent Technical Presence in Malawi

• Embed full-time within the Ministry of Health, becoming a trusted member of the client's extended team
• Develop deep, longitudinal understanding of the national health data landscape, institutional dynamics, and operational priorities
• Build and maintain relationships across all levels of the Ministry — from frontline data officers to senior leadership
• Act as the primary technical point of contact for all Sand activities in-country, coordinating with launchers, country directors, and visiting FDE teams

Drive On-Site Value Delivery

• Rapidly unlock, explore, and integrate client data sources (e.g., DHIS2, SCADA systems, network management platforms, operational databases)
• Understand client problems through prototyping and rapid value delivery — deploying POCs and MVPs using Sand's product components and playbooks
• Transition initial solutions into hardened, production-grade systems that the Ministry relies on daily
• Own the long-term health of deployed solutions — monitoring adoption, troubleshooting issues, and iterating based on user feedback
• Deliver and track value generated through deployment of Sand products

Enable Product-Led Growth

• Lead with Sand's existing product suite — know the products by heart and where each solution is most effective for the domain you're deployed in
• Document learnings, client challenges, and successful solutions as reusable patterns for the broader FDE community
• Drive discovery and expansion by uncovering new opportunities on the ground

Build Local Capacity and Sustainability

• Work alongside Ministry teams to co-create solutions and progressively transfer knowledge, ensuring they can operate and maintain systems independently
• Identify, recruit, and mentor local data engineers, scientists, and analysts to build sustainable in-country capacity
• Develop training materials and documentation tailored to the local context, language, and skill level
• Be the continuity that ensures handover isn't a cliff — you bridge the gap between Sand's deployment and the Ministry's long-term ownership

Feed the Platform Feedback Loop

• Channel field learnings back to improve the core product through structured mechanisms (Technical Deep Dives, Solution Swarms, pattern documentation)
• Turn "gravel roads" into "paved superhighways" — document solution patterns so the next FDE can move faster
• Contribute field feedback that influences 30% of the product roadmap

Requirements — Essential

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related technical field
• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, data science, system deployment, or technical leadership
• Proficiency in at least one of: Python, SQL/PostgreSQL, JavaScript — with ability to write production-grade code
• Strong problem-solving skills with a bias toward action and rapid prototyping
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills — comfortable presenting to senior government or corporate stakeholders and translating between technical and non-technical audiences
• Experience working with or deploying to government, public sector, or large institutional clients
• Proven ability to lead local technical teams and build capacity
• Willingness to relocate and be permanently based in Malawi for the duration of the engagement (12-24+ months)
• Language: Local language proficiency is a significant advantage

Requirements — Preferred

• Experience with data integration, ETL pipelines, and working with diverse data sources
• Experience in one or more of Sand's focus domains: health informatics/digital health, water utility operations, telecommunications network operations, or energy systems
• Familiarity with domain-specific platforms (e.g., DHIS2, OpenMRS for health; SCADA, GIS for water/energy; OSS/BSS for telecom)
• Experience with BI and dashboarding tools, particularly Apache Superset
• Experience with data transformation tools such as dbt or Airflow
• Comfort working with data dictionaries, reporting requirements, and identifying common data quality issues
• Knowledge of data security, privacy, and interoperability standards (e.g., FHIR for healthcare, GDPR, local data sovereignty requirements)
• Experience operating in resource-constrained environments (unreliable power, limited connectivity)

Work Environment

This is a permanently embedded role. You will work on-site at the Ministry of Health in Malawi 4 days per week, with 1 day for focused remote work, internal collaboration, and knowledge sharing with the broader FDE community. You should expect to be based in Malawi for a minimum of 12-24 months.

You must be self-driven, comfortable operating as Sand's primary technical representative in-country, and disciplined with online collaboration tools to stay connected with the broader Sand team across geographies. Cultural sensitivity, adaptability, and genuine interest in the local context are essential — you are not passing through, you are putting down roots.