Job Description

Empowering Africa's tomorrow, together...one story at a time.
With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.
Job Summary Lead the agile design, deployment & ongoing optimisation & evolution of enterprise wide Database technology platforms including but not limited to: Virtual Platforms, Middleware Systems Technology, Mainframe, Storage and API's. This includes: strategic direction setting & the transitioning / modernisation of the organisation to virtualisation & containerisation, cost transparency & optimisation, self service & provisioning at the point of interaction with our customers.

Platform Technologies Direction Setting, Solution Design & Performance Management

• Assume one stop shop accountability for the delivery of 'Platforms as a Service' optimally & sustainably
• Proactively & meaningfully collaborate across the value chain in the design & delivery of sustainable Platform Strategies and Solutions
• Conduct ongoing assessments of our existing platform, API & storage technologies & build & communicate relevant insights (consumption, cost etc.) for business decision making
• Leverage expertise in emerging technologies, benchmarks & architecture as well as the broader organisation business strategies to define the appropriate Platforms strategy for the organisation
• Lead & facilitate the design of the appropriate platform solutions & realise our goal to provide 'platforms as a service'
• Apply design thinking practices to deliver architecturally sound platform solutions (and explain / guide / coach others on this architecture holistically and technically)
• Lead the detailed scoping, prioritisation & integration planning for the design & deployment of platform services with & across multiple stakeholder groups (All businesses)
• Ensure the most optimal design & deployment of platform technologies in the organization (via pipeline - not manually)
• Manage all development & development practices & outputs across platform teams
• Ensure strategies & associated platform solutions deliver on the key technical principles of: self-service, repeatability, testability, scalability & resilience
• Effectively manage the DevOps& Decomm pipelines & associated releases, risk management for maximum customer impact & minimum business risk
• Embed a culture of ongoing maintenance & optimization of platforms as a 'way of doing things'. You are fully accountable for the longevity of solutions.
• Drive the implementation of an optimised platform base (containerisation, virtualisation) including the optimisation & or decommissioning of legacy platform technologies
• Meaningfully contribute & ensure solutions align to the design & direction of the Group Architecture standards, principles, preferences & practices. Short term deployment must align to strategic long term delivery.
• Define, Agree and manage service offerings and SLAs across multiple stakeholder groups (agree annually and measure on a monthly basis).
• Investigate new ways of work to improve sustainability in services and improve platform resilience, stability, scalability & flexibility and provide solutions aligned with the overall Technology strategy for the bank.
• Strategically & operationally monitor the performance of platforms & associated products & services - ensuring ongoing optimization & cost to value for our businesses (think bank wide)
• Design & leverage dashboards & related insights to influence the direction of Technology for the bank & an overall improvement in the bank's customer experience
• Continuously coach & mentor platform teams & the broader set of stakeholders on the optimal usage, consumption, development, optimisation etc. of platform technologies
• Drive awareness and collaboration of Platforms services to achieve optimal customer consumption and cost efficiencies.
• Attend relevant forums where direction is taken in terms of the future development of Infrastructure Services Africa in management and methodology.

Accountability: Build sustainable practices

• Proactively engage with stakeholders to ensure alignment in the utilisation and maintenance of platforms. Ensure that the various platform teams are adequately skilled and resourced to ensure sustainability.
• Analyse the effectiveness of practices, processes and systems in use in the distributed technologies teams and make recommendations for improvements.
• 'Stay ahead' of business needs through proactive engagement with business leaders
• Stay ahead of the curve on emerging technologies & associated technology practices
• Create & on an ongoing basis refine enterprise wide guidelines for Platform Services & Technologies
• Challenge established Group Technology (e.g. architecture, infrastructure) practices and define new practices for the sustainability & competitiveness of the organisation.

Accountability: Financial & Vendor Management, Risk & Governance

• Carry the 'one stop shop' accountability for all risk associated with technical decision making (from ideation to deployment)
• Contribute to, Manage & Apply the organization risk & governance frameworks (e.g. policies, SOX requirements, reporting etc.)
• Proactively monitor, manage & mitigate risk (e.g. reputation, resilience, stability, security) associated with platform technologies
• Ensure sustainable, regulatory compliant technology design & deployment for the enterprise
• Proactively involve / engage cross specialisation chapters / guilds & Business CIO's in technical decision making, applying an enterprise wide lens to technical development & deployment
• Manage all vendor selection processes & take full accountability for all related commercial impact
• Negotiate best fit contracts for the organization at an enterprise level and align decision making to our key business principles of scalability, resilience, captivity etc.
• Deliver on time & on budget (always)

Accountability: People management

• Set & Cascade Platforms strategic direction across the team
• Proactively attract, recruit, develop, retain, reward & deploy a diverse resource base aligned to an ever evolving tech environment (ahead of demand)
• Build a high performance team environment & culture through self-directed teams by driving performance management & measurement that is aligned with agile working practices (including daily, weekly, etc. sprint routines, regular & honest feedback etc.)
• Assume one stop shop accountability for the right people in the right teams to deliver on our tech strategy (always!)
• Leverage coaching techniques in all squad related activity to drive a higher quality design and deployment of technical products and services
• Contribute to the ongoing evolution & design of leading people practices for the effective attraction & retention of a highly skilled technical workforce
• Contribute to the development of technical teams by sharing best practices and specialist knowledge on an ongoing basis

Experience Required:

• 10+ years in IT operations, with 5+ years in leadership roles overseeing database or infrastructure teams.
• Proven experience managing production-grade database environments (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, MongoDB, Cassandra, etc.) at scale.
• Strong knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) and database-as-a-service models.
• Deep understanding of operational disciplines like SRE, DevOps, observability, and incident response.
• Solid grasp of ITIL or similar service management frameworks.
• Experience with automation and Infrastructure as Code (e.g., Terraform, Ansible, etc.).
• Exceptional leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

Education
Bachelor's Degree: Information Technology
Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.
Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised