Product Manager Water

About Us

UpEnergy delivers high-impact, emission-reducing projects that accelerate decarbonization and create long-term benefits in local communities. We design, deploy, and scale technologies that improve health, reduce emissions, and strengthen livelihoods across Africa.

With over 95 emission reduction projects delivered, more than 4 million lives impacted, and over 4 million tons of CO₂ reduced across seven countries, UpEnergy combines deep local execution with rigorous product, operational, and carbon-market discipline.

About the Role

UpEnergy is seeking a Product Manager Water to lead the development of our Safe Water projects. The role entails developing, optimizing, and scaling safe water projects across household, institutional, and community contexts.

This role owns the end-to-end product and project system for safe water - from early-stage project design and user segmentation, through unit economics and operational feasibility, to scale-up and long-term performance.

The ideal candidate is entrepreneurial, systems-oriented, and execution-driven, with the ability to translate real-world constraints (users, operations, costs, carbon, partners) into viable, scalable product and project strategies.

This is not a feature-level product role. It is a ground-up venture builder role within a structured organization.

Core Objectives

The Product Manager Water is accountable for:

• Designing safe water projects that are
  technically sound, economically viable, and operationally executable
• Deeply understanding end users and use contexts (households, schools, health facilities, other institutions)
• Owning and optimizing the unit economics and business case of safe water projects
• Translating field realities into product, operational, and commercial decisions
• Driving continuous iteration based on evidence, data, and learning loops
  

Product Strategy & Project Development

• Lead the design of safe water projects from concept to scaled deployment, including technology selection, delivery models, and user adoption strategy.
• Work with the Head of Product to define the safe water product strategy and roadmap, aligned with company-level profitability and impact goals.
• Identify country- and context-specific needs and translate them into clear product and project requirements.
• Define the minimum viable project model for new safe water deployments, including assumptions, risks, and dependencies.
• Build strong internal alignment across Product, Operations, Carbon, Origination, and Commercial teams.

User & Market Understanding

• Develop a deep understanding of different end-user segments, including:
  • Households
  • Schools
  • Health facilities
  • Other institutional or community users
• Analyze user behavior, constraints, incentives, and willingness to pay (or adopt).
• Incorporate cultural, behavioral, and affordability considerations into product and project design.
• Establish structured feedback loops from the field to inform iteration and prioritization.

Unit Economics & Business Case Ownership

• Own the unit economics model for safe water projects, including:
  • Capex and opex drivers
  • Cost-to-serve by user segment
  • Distribution and maintenance costs
  • Revenue or subsidy structures (where applicable)
  • Carbon revenue assumptions and sensitivities
• Work closely with Carbon and Finance teams to ensure:
  • Conservative, defensible business cases
  • Clear understanding of downside risks and levers
• Identify and prioritize levers that materially affect profitability, scalability, and risk.

Operational Design & Execution

• Understand and shape the operational model required to deliver safe water projects at scale, including:
  • Supply chain and sourcing
  • Distribution and installation
  • Maintenance, servicing, and monitoring
  • Partner and vendor management
• Collaborate closely with country operations teams to ensure feasibility and execution readiness.
• Translate operational constraints into product and design trade-offs.
• Support pilots and early deployments, ensuring learning is captured and applied.

Optimization, Learning & Iteration

• Lead structured experimentation and learning cycles for safe water projects.
• Coordinate documentation and synthesis of pilot and field learnings.
• Ensure insights from operations, users, and data are translated into concrete changes in:
  • Product design
  • Delivery model
  • Cost structure
  • User targeting
• Work with the Carbon team to ensure experimentation and monitoring support robust usage and credit generation assumptions.

Commercial & Scaling Support

• Support the definition of
  scaling strategies for safe water projects once viability is proven.
• Contribute to pricing, partnership, and distribution strategy discussions.
• Help assess new markets or geographies from a product + economics + operations perspective.
• Support decision-making on when to scale, adapt, pause, or stop initiatives.

Profile & Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Engineering, Business, Economics, Product Management, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in product management, project development, or venture-building roles, preferably in emerging markets, with special importance if experience is within safe water projects.
• Demonstrated experience developing products or projects
  from the ground up, not just optimizing existing ones.
• Strong understanding of unit economics, cost structures, and business-case modeling.
• Comfort working across technical, operational, and commercial domains.
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to make decisions under uncertainty.
• Entrepreneurial mindset: comfortable with ambiguity, iteration, and field-driven learning.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work cross-functionally and across geographies.

Why Join Us?

Your Impact, Amplified

Joining UpEnergy means becoming part of a mission-driven team dedicated to making a tangible difference in the world.
Our focus is on ensuring that the world's poorest are not left behind in global decarbonization efforts, and that sustainable, life-improving technologies reach those who need them most.

As a fast-growing organization, we provide the unique opportunity to work on innovative projects that directly impact millions of lives across Africa.
Whether you're on the ground implementing projects or supporting our global expansion, you'll be part of a dynamic team where your work contributes to reducing CO2 emissions and fighting energy poverty.
This is more than just a job - it's a chance to create lasting change and be at the forefront of a global movement towards equitable decarbonization.