UI/UX Engineer

ABOUT INKOMOKO 

Inkomoko supports entrepreneurs to grow their businesses in order to improve livelihoods, create jobs, and help communities thrive. 

In 2026, Inkomoko was listed by the Financial Times as the 5th fastest-growing company in Africa, supporting entrepreneurs across East and Central Africa to grow thriving businesses and build inclusive, resilient economies. 

Founded in 2012, Inkomoko has worked with more than 100,000 entrepreneurs, including thousands of refugee entrepreneurs. Inkomoko provides a combination of training, consulting, access to finance, and market-level systems change.  We are the largest investor to refugee entrepreneurs in Africa.  

Inkomoko has 900+ staff in 50 offices across Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Sudan. Through Inkomoko’s 2030 strategic plan, we are adding 3 additional countries to serve more than 550,000 entrepreneurs and growing our $30M loan fund to impact 7M lives. 

  INKOMOKO VALUES

All staff at Inkomoko are connected to a shared set of organizational values:

• Purpose: be solutions-oriented, produce high-quality work, and be a global leader.
• Achievement: push yourself to reach beyond what you previously thought possible. 
• Improvement: be humble, engage in continuous growth through open & accurate feedback
• Bravery: willing to take risks, create a safe space for others, be compassionate, and inclusive.
• We Eat Goat:  we celebrate success and support each other in hard times. We do this work together in the spirit of turikumwe, tuko pamoja, abren nen, Kula na sawa, On est ensemble.

Inkomoko is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer.  Refugees, women, and persons who reflect the diverse communities we serve are strongly encouraged to apply.  

ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The UI/UX Engineer plays a critical role in creating intuitive, accessible, and engaging digital experiences that enable entrepreneurs, field teams, and partners to interact seamlessly with Inkomoko's digital products. Reporting to the Head of Products and Innovation and working closely with Product Managers, Software Engineers, and business stakeholders, the role is responsible for translating user needs into scalable, human-centered digital experiences that drive adoption, efficiency, and measurable business impact across multiple countries.

Key responsibilities include:

Product Discovery & Customer Experience (30% time)

• Participate in product discovery sessions to understand business problems and user needs.
• Conduct customer journey mapping across digital and offline touchpoints.
• Develop user personas and behavioral segmentation.
• Identify customer pain points and translate them into design opportunities.
• Support Product Managers in validating hypotheses through user research and experimentation.

Design and Functionality for Users (60% time)

• Identify gaps and challenges in UI/UX and propose improvements for change, working through the development process with end users
• Gather and evaluate user requirements in collaboration with product managers and developers
• Illustrate design ideas using storyboards, process flows and sitemaps
• Design graphic user interface elements, like menus, tabs and widgets
• Build page navigation buttons, search/input fields
• Develop UI mockups and prototypes that clearly illustrate how sites/apps function and look, present to stakeholders for feedback, and iterate as needed based on feedback and functionality.
• As we expand into new geographies, conduct user research and product testing with new market segments 
• Proactively and effectively communicate to project sponsors
• Work closely with developers to implement the approved designs and approaches
• Develop and maintain Inkomoko's enterprise Design System, including reusable UI components, interaction patterns, accessibility standards, typography, icons, and branding guidelines.
• Ensure consistency across all digital products and platforms.
• Design responsive experiences optimized for web, mobile, tablet, USSD, and low-bandwidth environments.
• Apply accessibility standards (WCAG) to ensure products are usable by people with varying literacy levels and abilities.
• Use analytics and usability metrics to continuously improve user experiences.Identify and troubleshoot UX problems (e.g. responsiveness)
• Coordinate with the QA Analyst for generating insights on any usability issues
• Adhere to Inkomoko style standards on fonts, colors and images
• Use Asana and Jira to record project status and documentation

Other User Experience Supports (10% time)

• Serve as the in-house expert in user experience, including supporting other staff to work HCD processes to create better user experiences (even non-tech ones)
• Coordinate with other colleagues for project prioritization along the IT Roadmap
• Support and backup other IT colleagues as needed and other duties as assigned
• Proactively identify development needs and raise those for plans for approval and implementation
• Troubleshoot for all users, particularly for high-value users like directors

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

• At least 5 years experience with creating user experiences in digital interfaces
• Previous experience working with low-digital literacy clients in rural areas in East Africa
• Coding experience preferred in our stack: Python, XML, Javascript, Postgresql

• Great communication skills with a diverse team
• A champion of HCD with lots of empathy
• Commitment to fixing the problem, not promoting one solution
• Graphic design skills and experience building wireframes and storyboards

• Fluent in written and spoken English, plus at least one other East African language.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in User Experience (UX) Design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Interaction Design, Information Technology, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Graphic Design, Digital Design, or a related field.
• Advanced proficiency in industry-standard UI/UX design and prototyping tools such as Figma (preferred), Sketch, Adobe XD, Adobe Creative Suite, or equivalent.
• Demonstrated knowledge of Design Thinking, User-Centered Design (UCD), Information Architecture, Interaction Design, and Accessibility Standards (WCAG).
• Experience with responsive and mobile-first design principles and designing for web and mobile applications.
• Understanding of front-end technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) to facilitate effective collaboration with Software Engineering teams (preferred but not mandatory).
• Professional certification in Google UX Design, Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Design Thinking, or equivalent is an added advantage.
• Master's degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Interaction Design, Computer Science, Information Systems, Digital Innovation, Engineering, or a Business-related field is an added advantage.

Key Competencies:

We are looking for someone who;

• Instills Trust - Follows through on commitments, builds credibility by being direct and truthful, and shows genuine care for staff members.
• Acts with Courage - Steps up to address difficult issues and speaks openly with bravery; takes the initiative to pursue new opportunities; takes full ownership of own work.
• Makes Informed Decisions - Seeks relevant data and input when needed, takes appropriate action within their area of responsibility, and knows when to escalate issues or seek guidance.
• Customer-Centric Mindset - Demonstrates deep empathy for the customer and acts as a constant advocate for their needs.
• Systems Thinking - Ability to understand complex business processes and design intuitive end-to-end experiences.
• Data-Driven Design - Uses customer insights, usability testing, and analytics to inform design decisions.
• Innovation - Applies emerging design techniques and technologies to improve customer experiences.
• Collaboration - Builds productive relationships across business, product, engineering, and field teams.
• Strategic Thinking - Balances user needs, business priorities, technical feasibility, and operational realities.

Success Measures:

The successful candidate will be expected to:

• Improve customer satisfaction and usability scores.
• Increase digital product adoption.
• Reduce user errors and support requests.
• Improve task completion rates.
• Establish and maintain an enterprise design system.
• Deliver consistent experiences across all digital platforms.
• Improve accessibility and inclusivity of digital products.
• Support successful product launches.
• Strengthen the organization's human-centered design capability.

WHAT YOU’LL GET

This role is inside a high-growth, mission-driven social enterprise. By joining, you’ll access:

• Competitive salary, and potential Performance-based bonus
• Incredible company culture, with opportunities for learning and growth
• Diverse colleagues across the region, and policies that demonstrate commitment to equity and inclusion 
• Ability to make a significant social impact to your community
• Health insurance for self and family
• Staff savings and provident fund, negotiated bank rates for long-term employees
• Generous annual leave, parental leave, and sabbatical options. 

TO APPLY

If you’re excited about this role, please submit your application through the jobs portal.

Tell us about what you’ll bring to this growing company.

DEADLINE:  31st July 2026. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, please apply as soon as possible!

Inkomoko is committed to justice, diversity, equity and inclusion.  As we seek to reflect the communities we serve, refugees and women are strongly encouraged to apply. As a company we have policies that ensure fair treatment in the application process. 

NB: Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Employment is conditional upon successful background checks and other verification as needed.

All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and background screening checks. Inkomoko also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme, In line with this Scheme, we will request information from job applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual misconduct, fraud, or abuse. By applying, the job applicant confirms his/her understanding of these recruitment procedures.