Technical Account Manager

Description

iwoca started in 2012 and was born out of the frustration that small businesses lack the access to finance they need to reach their potential. Our belief then was that technology must enable us to significantly shorten the archaic 8-week bank application process which more often than not results in a ‘no’. Nearly a decade later and we have served more than 50,000 businesses across the UK and Germany with more than £2 billion of finance. Our personal best from a business starting an application to money in the bank is 3m26s (faster than Mo Farah on 1,500 meters). It’s a good start, but it’s just the beginning.

Our mission is to finance 1 million businesses, so still, a long way to go.

Through the course of our journey, we have learned that

• SME lending is a tech play at heart - processing applications from SMEs of all shapes and sizes is very complex, and the effective use of technology is essential for doing that at scale
• Embedded finance is the future for SME lending - businesses won’t need to go to banks anymore. We’re increasingly reaching businesses by embedding our finance offering through API integrations into the SME ecosystem including online marketplaces, accountancy systems, or neobanks
• Payments and credit are converging: Many businesses have cash-flow gaps because they receive money from their customers only way after having to pay their own bills. So we want to tackle the cashflow problem by offering loans, but also tackle the problem at its root by improving payment terms.
• We must continuously innovate in order to meet more of our customers’ finance needs - we won the BCR which helped us launch iwocapay, and we're soon launching a revenue-based loan. We’re constantly evaluating new opportunities, and finding new ways that we can meet the financing needs of more small businesses.

We work hard to make iwoca a place where everyone feels welcome, where you can confidently be yourself. We understand that diversity isn't an optional add-on, it's the core ingredient of what makes us great.

As a Technical Account Manager, you will be responsible for the technical success of our partnerships, and will guide them through the entire lifecycle: early discussions, on-boarding, post go-live and account growth. You will be working closely with external partners and internal teams (such as product, engineering, channel sales and compliance) to not only ensure that the integration is done in a seamless manner, but to also ensure that partnerships take advantage of iwoca’s product and tech offerings.

Requirements

Supported by the £10M government grant we won in 2019, we are building OpenLending - a platform that enables partners to seamlessly offer iwoca’s lending products from within the partner journey, using our Lending API.

As a Technical Account Manager, you will be a technical advisor for our Open Lending partners, guiding them through the entire lifecycle: early discussions, on-boarding, post go-live and account growth. You will be the voice of our Open Lending partners and reflect their wants and needs internally. You will be working closely with external partners and internal teams (such as product, engineering, channel sales and compliance) to ensure the integration drives the most value for small businesses, our partners and iwoca.

This role sits in our product function, reporting to the Senior Product Manager for Open Lending. Your mission will be to:

Provide first class technical and strategic support to our partners using iwoca’s Lending API:

• Own and drive partner relationships in both the UK and Germany from a product and tech perspective: from strategy to implementation to optimisation.
• Be a technical expert on how OpenLending works for integrating lending in the partners’ product and the resulting end-customer journey
• Craft and execute strategies for leveraging the OpenLending product offering to drive the most value for partners and iwoca, working with commercial and product teams on both sides.
• Own the Partner API Documentation, ensure it’s compelling and clear, and is useful to partners in achieving their goals.

Drive and influence product opportunities based on partner feedback:

• Work with partners to develop and deliver on the technical roadmap, own the partner relationship from a product and tech perspective and be able to suggest improvements to partners that add value to their integration.
• Work closely with the Senior Product Manager for OpenLending to prioritise valuable improvements & influence the OpenLending roadmap based on partner feedback and your own observations.

Improve the operational tasks and processes of the Partner Success team:

• Spot opportunities for operational and technical improvements to on-board more partners seamlessly and add more value to our partnerships.
• Provide leadership, mentorship, guidance, and subject matter expertise to the Partner Success team and meaningfully contribute to the team’s growth

Have an interest in iwoca’s commercial strategy:

• Based on your interactions with our internal commercial teams, know how iwoca’s commercial outlook should influence your interactions with our partners.
• Develop interpersonal relationships across many areas of iwoca’s business to increase visibility of partner issues and consistently improve your understanding of how our teams work together
• Track and understand changes in iwoca’s commercial strategy--be able to offer informed opinions and work with our Partnerships team to understand what the consequences are for iwoca’s API partners

We look for people that are smart, humble, motivated and who are always looking to improve. Ideally, you’ll have:

• 1+ years experience as a Technical Account Manager, Solutions Engineer / Architect, or other customer / partner-facing technical role.
• A technical background or similar experience; you’re comfortable reading and writing code proficiently in at least one language and can prototype a basic API integration
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills. You are known for writing excellent, well-planned emails and facilitating productive calls, and you thrive in environments that require building relationships built on trust and expertise
• Strong track record in delivering business results through B2B integrations, leveraging tech expertise and commercial acumen.
• Confident and experienced in getting buy-in from stakeholders, managing competing priorities and pushing back when required
• Strong project management and multi-tasking skills. You have a track record in successfully managing multiple partner implementations and relationships at the same time
• Experience using or working with web APIs and knowledge about API standards
• Strong leadership skills or experience in management are a plus
• Fluency in German would be a bonus

Benefits

What’s life like as an iwocan?

We all enjoy:

• Bright, modern office spaces in Covent Garden & Leeds. We have always supported flexible working however during the current pandemic the majority of iwocans are working from home. We have taken every precaution to keep our offices COVID-19 secure for those that need to use them.
• A calendar of ‘remote friendly’ events each week including Bingo, Comedy Nights, Escape Room challenges
• Two company retreats a year (in places like the French Alps or Spanish seaside)

• Pool, ping pong, foosball tables and tournaments
• Virtual Yoga classes every Tuesday and Thursday morning
• An ever-growing number of clubs including climbing, chess, football and boxing
• Plenty of drinks and snacks in our office kitchen

Just for you:

• Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership
• We take your well being incredibly seriously, so you’ll have instant access to emotional and mental health support services via our partner Spill
• Share options
• Enhanced maternity and shared parental leave
• A workplace nursery tax benefit scheme. Save £££ on your nursery costs.
• 25 days holiday per year and an extra day off on your birthday
• All the equipment you need to set up your home working space up
• Paid volunteering time for you to support your chosen charity
• Extra leave if you want to travel or study
• Special celebrations for anniversaries and long service including sabbatical
• Flexible working arrangements
• Cycle-to-work scheme

And to make sure we all keep learning, we offer:

• L&D budget including a book budget to encourage you to keep learning
• Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers
• A calendar of meetups we host at our office
• Access to learning platforms like Treehouse if you want to learn to code.