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!

The Role

This role encompasses engineering, supporting, and managing Tala's global telephony environment in a highly available (99.9% uptime) and scalable manner & driving a multi-channel strategy for customer contactability outside of just telephony. The telephony architecture includes VoIP Infrastructure, Asterisk PBXs, Five9 call center systems, and call recording systems for the global Operations team. Daily responsibilities include maintaining high quality and availability for all voice systems, supporting architecture tasks, and collaborating with Operations and Shared Services to strategize and implement a unified communications platform.  Additionally, the role is responsible for looking at ways to leverage AI based tools to help drive efficiencies around call transcribing, call quality analysis etc.

• 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.

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.