Global Telephony Manager

About Tala

Tala is on a mission to unleash the economic power of the Global Majority – the 4 billion people overlooked by existing financial systems. With nearly half a billion dollars raised from equity and debt, we are serving millions of customers across three continents. Tala has been named by the Fortune Impact 20 list, CNBC’s Disruptor 50 five years in a row, CNBC’s World's Top Fintech Company, Forbes’ Fintech 50 list for eight years running, and Chief's The New Era of Leadership Award. We are expanding across product offerings, countries and crypto and are looking for people who have an entrepreneurial spirit and are passionate about our mission.

By creating a unique platform that enables lending and other financial services around the globe, people in emerging markets are able to start and expand small businesses, manage day-to-day needs, and pursue their financial goals with confidence. Currently, over nine million people across Kenya, the Philippines, Mexico, and India have used Tala products. Due to our global team, we have a remote-first approach, and also have offices in Santa Monica, CA (HQ); Nairobi, Kenya; Mexico City, Mexico; Manila, the Philippines; and Bangalore, India.

Most Talazens join us because they connect with our mission. If you are energized by the impact you can make at Tala, we’d love to hear from you!

About the Role

As a Telephony Manager, you will be responsible for the engineering, support, and management of Tala's global telephony environment. This is a critical role focused on ensuring a highly available (99.9% uptime) and scalable system.

Your primary responsibilities will include:

-Managing our telephony architecture, including VoIP infrastructure, Asterisk PBXs, and Five9 call center systems.

-Driving a multi-channel strategy to improve customer contactability beyond traditional telephony.

-Maintaining system quality and availability, while collaborating with global teams to implement a unified communications platform.

-Leveraging AI-based tools to enhance efficiencies in call transcription and quality analysis.

• Team Leadership and Development: Lead a global team of telephony engineers, setting performance goals, and providing mentorship and growth opportunities.
• Strategic Telephony Infrastructure: Develop and execute a global telephony roadmap that ensures high availability (99.9% uptime), scalability, and cost-effectiveness of all voice systems, including VoIP Infrastructure, Asterisk PBXs, Five9, and GSM Gateways. This also involves looking at ways to migrate more to a multi channel contactability architecture and leveraging AI for call center operations
• Vendor and Partner Management: Manage relationships with key telephony vendors and partners globally, negotiating contracts and ensuring that service level agreements (SLAs) are met.
• Product and Cross-Functional Integration: Serve as a key liaison between the telephony team and product teams, translating business needs into technical requirements and driving the integration of telephony solutions that enhance product offerings.
• Operational Excellence and Compliance: Ensure all telephony systems operate with high quality and availability, proactively monitoring performance and maintaining accurate documentation. Ensure compliance with relevant industry regulations and security standards
• Hands on experience: Be ready to jump in technically for any issues and be hands on with telephony infrastructure
• Global On-Call Support: Work with the team & provide on-call support for critical telephony issues as needed

• 7+ years of experience in managing and maintaining complex telephony systems, specifically in a call center environment.
• Deep understanding of VoIP technologies, including SIP, GSM, and RTP.
• Understanding of using multi channel methods like email, messaging etc in a contact center
• Vendor negotiation and management especially with telcos in multiple geographies such as Latin America, Asia and Africa
• Extensive experience with global call center architectures, involving AWS solutions that help with transcribing and call quality using AI
• Experience with dialer platforms e.g., Five9, Genesys is highly desirable.
• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Experience with scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash) is a plus.

Our vision is to build a new financial ecosystem where everyone can participate on equal footing and access the tools they need to be financially healthy. We strongly believe that inclusion fosters innovation and we’re proud to have a diverse global team that represents a multitude of backgrounds, cultures, and experience. We hire talented people regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.