Safaricom, Kenya’s telecommunications giant, is doing all it can to retain its number one spot in the country, including a recent funnelling of 400 software developers into its workforce.
This is happening at a time when almost all the big technology companies around the world are either cutting jobs or freezing hiring.
For many years, Kenya has maintained the shiny position as the choice destination for technology companies in East Africa. With many international and local businesses setting up shop in the country, the need for skilled tech talents has continued to be on the rise.
Now, Safaricom is making sure its workforce of 6,230 people is not void of skilled software developers, as a gap in skilled labour can easily translate to a gap in product quality.
Well, Safaricom isn’t just hiring for the sake of it. The company has several products in its pipeline, and these new hires will be instrumental in fleshing—or coding—them out.
According to the CEO, the company plans to launch an e-commerce platform on the M-Pesa super app. In addition to that, they plan to offer digitised financial technology solutions like savings, insurance, loans, and wealth management to their customers.
In the light of these, it becomes clear that Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest connectivity company, is rebranding into a full-blown technology firm.
