The Startup Gospel According to Pharaoh
I recently came upon a job posting and had to pause.
Not because the responsibilities were strange.
Not because the role was fake.
But because the gap between the expectations and the compensation was loud enough to start speaking in King James English.
The company wanted a Technical Project Manager for a fintech and crypto product. Remote. Full-time. Reporting directly to the Founder and CEO.
The role would own engineering execution across:
- Backend engineering
- Frontend engineering
- Blockchain engineering
- QA and testing
- Product management
- UI/UX design
- External vendors
- Third-party integrations
- Leadership reporting
It also included sprint planning, delivery forecasts, risk management, task tracking, accountability, documentation, stakeholder communication, meeting facilitation, and blocker removal.
In other words:
"Please become the central nervous system of the company."
The pay?
Up to ₦150,000 per month.
Brother...
This isn't a job description.
It's the Book of Lamentations.
Read the job posting excerpt that inspired this reflection
Technical Project Manager
Location: Remote, Nigeria preferred
Employment Type: Full-time
Reports To: Founder and CEO
The company is a digital asset platform building secure and intuitive financial products for emerging markets. Its ecosystem enables users to buy, sell, send, receive, and swap cryptocurrencies while expanding into broader financial services.
The company describes itself as building with long-term vision, high standards, and a strong execution culture. It wants a Technical Project Manager who thrives in fast-paced startup environments and can take full ownership of delivery across the engineering team.
Role Overview
The Technical Project Manager is responsible for successful delivery across engineering projects.
The role owns execution: coordinating engineering activities, managing timelines, removing blockers, monitoring progress, facilitating communication, enforcing accountability, and ensuring milestones are delivered on schedule and at the expected quality.
Key Responsibilities
Project Planning and Delivery
- Develop and maintain project roadmaps
- Convert product requirements into executable project plans
- Break milestones into actionable tasks
- Create sprint plans and delivery schedules
- Estimate timelines alongside engineering teams
- Monitor project progress daily
- Ensure milestones are delivered on time
Engineering Coordination
- Coordinate backend engineering
- Coordinate frontend engineering
- Coordinate blockchain engineering
- Coordinate QA and testing
- Coordinate product management
- Coordinate UI/UX design
- Manage dependencies between teams
Daily Execution Management
- Conduct regular stand-ups and project check-ins
- Track completed work
- Monitor work in progress
- Follow up on overdue tasks
- Escalate delays before they affect delivery
- Keep engineering teams aligned
Sprint and Task Management
- Manage workflows in Jira, Linear, ClickUp, Trello, or Notion
- Create tickets
- Assign tasks
- Update task status
- Prioritize work
- Manage backlogs
- Track velocity
Risk and Blocker Management
- Identify risks before they become problems
- Remove blockers proactively
- Manage delayed API integrations, missing documentation, infrastructure issues, resource constraints, and third-party dependency delays
Communication and Reporting
- Prepare weekly project status reports
- Prepare sprint reports
- Track milestone progress
- Create delivery forecasts
- Report team capacity
- Track blockers and project risks
- Give leadership clear visibility into project health
Meeting Management
- Lead sprint planning
- Lead daily stand-ups
- Lead weekly engineering reviews
- Lead milestone reviews
- Lead retrospectives
- Lead cross-functional coordination meetings
- Prepare agendas, capture action items, and ensure follow-up
Accountability and Documentation
- Track individual ownership
- Track task completion
- Track deadline adherence
- Track quality expectations
- Maintain roadmaps, sprint boards, meeting minutes, action items, risk registers, change logs, delivery timelines, and engineering progress reports
Required Skills
- Strong understanding of Agile methodologies
- Experience managing software development projects
- Excellent communication skills
- Exceptional organizational ability
- Strong stakeholder management
- Ability to prioritize multiple workstreams
- Excellent problem-solving skills
- High attention to detail
- Strong documentation skills
- Ability to manage remote engineering teams
Technical Knowledge
The candidate does not need to write production code, but should understand REST APIs, mobile app development, backend architecture, frontend workflows, databases, Git/GitHub workflows, CI/CD, cloud infrastructure basics, and third-party API integrations.
Fintech or crypto product experience is highly desirable.
Preferred Experience
- 5+ years managing software development projects
- Fintech, payments, blockchain, Web3, or cryptocurrency experience
- Startup experience
- Distributed engineering team coordination
Success Metrics
- Milestones delivered on schedule
- Sprint completion rate
- Developer productivity and accountability
- Reduction in unresolved blockers
- Accurate and consistent reporting
- Quality documentation
- Cross-team communication effectiveness
- Time-to-resolution for delivery issues
Compensation
Pay: Up to ₦150,000 per month
Jokes aside, there are actually some excellent expectations in this job description.
Most of what they are asking a Technical Project Manager to do is, in fact, the work of a competent Technical Project Manager.
The problem is not what they are asking.
The problem is what they are willing to pay.
And that is where Scripture quietly walks into the room, pulls up a chair, and starts asking uncomfortable questions.
1. The Worker Deserves His Wages
"The laborer deserves his wages."
Luke 10:7
"You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain."
Deuteronomy 25:4
Let's count the responsibilities again.
This person is expected to coordinate engineering teams, product teams, vendors, leadership communication, risk, documentation, delivery, reporting, meetings, blockers, and accountability.
That is not a light coordination role.
That is organizational load-bearing work.
Compensation?
₦150,000.
Abeg.
2. Responsibility Should Match Reward
Throughout Proverbs, responsibility and reward are closely connected. The more entrusted to a person, the greater the expectation placed upon them.
Scripture never pretends that leadership is light work.
This job description repeatedly says things like:
- "Own execution"
- "Hold teams accountable"
- "Ensure successful delivery"
- "Bring structure to ambiguity"
Those are not junior expectations.
Those are leadership expectations.
Ownership without proportional reward eventually becomes exploitation. A company that expects senior-level stewardship while offering entry-level compensation should not be surprised when senior-level talent quietly exits stage left.
3. Do Not Oppress Your Worker
James 5 contains some of the strongest language in the New Testament directed at employers. God takes the treatment of workers remarkably seriously.
Now, to be fair, there is an important distinction.
If a company genuinely only has ₦150,000 to pay because it is young, struggling, and operating on fumes, that is one thing.
Poverty is not oppression.
Every startup begins somewhere.
But if the expectation is "world-class execution" while deliberately underpaying because someone, somewhere, will eventually accept the offer, then we have entered very different territory.
Intent matters.
4. Stewardship Goes Both Ways
One line in the job description stood out:
"Brings structure to ambiguity."
Excellent.
That is leadership.
That is stewardship.
But stewardship is never a one-way street.
Leaders are called to steward more than products and deadlines. They must also steward people's time, energy, families, careers, and livelihoods.
A shepherd does not simply count sheep.
He feeds them.
Many leaders become excellent stewards of profit while becoming remarkably poor stewards of people.
Scripture never separates the two.
5. The Quiet Face of Greed
When most people hear the word greed, they imagine someone obsessed with accumulating money.
The Bible paints a broader picture.
Greed is also wanting the maximum possible benefit while giving the minimum possible return.
Some startups unintentionally build entire cultures around this philosophy.
"We're a family."
Translation:
"We would like Fortune 500 performance using ramen-noodle budgets."
The expectation quietly becomes:
Give us your evenings, your weekends, your emotional energy, your creativity, your leadership, your ownership, your experience, and preferably your firstborn child.
Compensation?
"We'll discuss that after Series A."
Even Jacob, whose resume included professional trickster, eventually understood that the worker deserves his wages.
6. The Shepherd Principle
Ezekiel 34 contains God's rebuke against shepherds who fed themselves while neglecting the flock.
It is astonishing how relevant that passage feels in modern business.
Bad leaders constantly ask:
"How much more can I get from my people?"
Good leaders ask:
"What do my people need in order to succeed?"
Notice Jesus.
He did not look at the disciples and say, "Feed five thousand people," then disappear for lunch.
He provided the bread.
Good leadership equips before it expects.
7. Heavy Burdens Make Terrible Leadership
Jesus rebuked the religious leaders of His day with words that could easily be pasted into some LinkedIn job descriptions:
"They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders..."
Some leaders have mastered the art of distributing responsibility without distributing authority.
Or support.
Or compensation.
That is not leadership.
That is delegation by abandonment.
There is a profound difference between empowering people and simply giving them more things to worry about.
My Favourite Line
This part made me smile:
"Takes ownership without being asked."
Excellent.
Then:
"Solves problems independently."
Still excellent.
Then:
"Brings structure to ambiguity."
Wonderful.
Then:
"Thrives in startup environments."
🤣🤣🤣
Translation:
"Everything is currently on fire. We need someone who enjoys the smell of smoke."
The Irony David Understood
The company proudly declares:
"We're building with high standards."
Wonderful.
Here is the obvious question:
Are you compensating with equally high standards?
Because excellence has never been free.
King David understood something many modern businesses seem to have forgotten. When Araunah offered him the threshing floor for free, David refused:
"I will not offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing."
2 Samuel 24:24
David understood a timeless principle.
Things of great value usually cost something.
If you want exceptional engineers, exceptional project managers, exceptional designers, and exceptional leaders, you should expect to pay for exceptional people.
Otherwise, what you are really hoping for is a miracle.
Final Thoughts
This job description reminded me of another story from Scripture.
Pharaoh wanted cities built.
He wanted speed.
He wanted quality.
He wanted output.
He wanted more bricks.
Then he quietly removed the straw.
Many modern organizations accidentally repeat the same pattern. They increase expectations while reducing support. They demand ownership while minimizing investment. They ask for world-class execution but hesitate when it is time to pay world-class compensation.
Good leaders do not simply ask for much.
They also invest much.
Throughout Scripture, from David to Solomon to Jesus Himself, faithful leadership has always understood this simple truth:
Leadership is not merely about placing burdens on others. It is about carrying the cost of leading well.
Or, to put it in startup language:
Everybody wants a Joseph.
Very few want to pay Joseph.
And that is where the biblical irony begins.