Job Description

Bring your possibility to life! Define your career with us

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 solution design, deployment & ongoing optimization & evolution of less complex enterprise wide technology platforms & delivery systems



Are you ready to make a difference?
Join an exciting and dynamic team of Data Center Network Engineers.
Lead the agile solution design, deployment & ongoing optimization & evolution of less complex enterprise wide technology platforms & delivery systems
Key accountabilities: (What youxe2x80x99ll get to do)
Platform Direction Setting, Solution Design & Performance Management

• Work with the Cross Functional Technology Leaders and CIOxe2x80x99s to understand & assess business and customer requirements (short, medium, long term)
• Leverage business (e.g. strategy, customer insights & CVP, competitor insights) and cross-technology (tech products & services, architecture, tech roadmap) performance data to identify strategic and operational platform opportunities
• Positively contribute to the organisation wide platform & engineering strategy & the achievement of end-end xe2x80x98Platforms as a Servicexe2x80x99
• Set the supported platform vision and direction for the organisation
• Clearly articulate the supported platform strategy & roadmap
• Cascade the platform vision, direction & strategy across the business & facilitate stakeholder alignment
• Build a leading practice xe2x80x98centre of enablementxe2x80x99 partnership with business - trusted to influence the broader technology & product & services strategies - & achieve an integrated set of technology, business & customer objectives
• Collaborate across the tech value chain (CSO, CTO, etc.) to guide the business on the appropriate technical solution (cost to value) & the range of strategic technical choices to be made
• Take full accountability for leading the design, delivery & management of advanced (i.e. simple, innovative, optimised, modernised) platforms and associated infrastructure & architecture (end to end) & their validation
• Lead the identification and selection of fit for purpose internal & external technologies
• Design, implement & manage design thinking practices across platform feature teams to deliver architecturally sound platform technology solutions
• Lead & facilitate the design of the integrated set of platform solution blueprints & coach teams on the strategic direction, vision, platform development, architecture & infrastructure holistically
• Lead the detailed scoping, prioritisation & integration planning for the integrated set of platform solution designs & deployment across multiple stakeholder groups
• Act as the point of escalation for all major issues and events and apply deep subject matter expertise to facilitate their resolution with minimal business & customer impact.
• Strategically & operationally monitor the performance of platforms (all applications) xe2x80x93 ensuring ongoing optimization & cost to value for our businesses (think bank wide)
• Be accountable for leading & developing innovative methods for measuring the customer experience, and translate the data to drive platform improvements
• Define & lead the implementation of quality performance measures & metrics & related data analytics tools and processes to enable business decision making
• Leverage data and insights from business, customer and platform itself to make technical design and implementation decisions
• Lead the resolution of service issues by analyzing and prioritizing data from stakeholders and directing service improvement efforts.
• Take full accountability for the end-to-end platform quality, completeness and resulting user experience for the life of the product or service.
• Design & deliver an optimal platform delivery capability that aligns the necessary people, process, & systems for optimal efficiency & effectiveness
• Assess Platform Capabilities and drive capability development plans for exceptional delivery & evolution of the platform
• Lead the design, implementation & adoption of enhanced process or technology solutions that identify and resolve platform, system, deployment, and environmental issues.
• Identify new and emerging practices for managing platforms and lead the adoption of new practices, across groups or disciplines to improve platform & associated platform analysis capabilities.
• Meaningfully contribute to & ensure solutions align to the design & direction of the Group Technology (e.g. architecture, DevOps) standards, principles, preferences & practices. Short term deployment must align to strategic long term delivery.
• Meaningfully contribute to & ensure solutions align to the design and direction of the Group Infrastructure standards and practices e.g. SLAxe2x80x99s, OLAxe2x80x99s, IAAS, PAAS, SAAS, Containerisation etc.
• Identify, development and lead the implementation of platform standards and best practices, and drive adoption across multiple value-chain wide product & service teams

Accountability: Platform Development & Delivery Management

• Leverage the required expert level (own) skill & knowledge in platform engineering. architecture & Infrastructure, design and manage all development & development practices & outputs across feature teams
• Ensure the most optimal design & deployment of technical solutions in the organization (via pipeline xe2x80x93 not manually)
• Lead the quality assurance & test automation agenda & continuous integration / delivery strategies & frameworks for the platform and take accountability for the platforms delivery of the broader technology principles of: self-service, resilience, repeatability, testability, scalability & resilience
• Guide code development practices (across platform & product engineering teams) and processes through an understanding of complex concepts and developmental practices
• Guide & ensure the delivery of quality development (code) based on own experience platform engineering
• Effectively manage the platform delivery pipeline & associated releases for maximum customer impact & minimum business risk
• Lead the maintenance & optimization of the platform as a xe2x80x98way of doing things / culturexe2x80x99 across the team. You are fully accountable for the longevity of solutions.
• Coach & Mentor senior engineers on technical competencies to effectively deliver on platform strategy.
• Resource & manage the appropriate number and nature (skill & capability) of squad based teams to execute on both Run & Change elements of delivery.
• Ensure agile practices are implemented and sustained for effective delivery to business e.g. RETROxe2x80x99s etc.

Accountability: Financial & Vendor Management, Risk & Governance

• Positively contribute to the development & management of the integrated platform cost model & framework
• Take full accountability for and lead the design & continuous improvement of an integrated platform specific cost model & the ongoing optimisation of platform efficiencies and effectiveness
• Analyse operational cost data, identify cost-saving efficiencies and influence the business to adopt these efficiencies across multiple service teams xe2x80x93 taking care to balance decision making for optimal efficiency & effectiveness
• Carry the xe2x80x98one stop shopxe2x80x99 accountability for all risk associated with technical decision making (from ideation to deployment)
• Manage & Apply the organization risk & governance frameworks - & represent the platform in all risk, governance & compliance processes (e.g. CTO approvals etc)
• 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)

People

• Set & Cascade platform vision, direction & strategy across squads (feature teams)
• Design, implement and lead cross functional collaboration processes across technology teams and set cross-team commitments and achieve scale by enabling the work of others
• 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 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.)
• Accountable for the right people in the right teams to deliver on our tech strategy (always!)
• Leverage coaching techniques to drive a higher quality design and deployment of technical products and services across technology teams

Role/Person specification: (What do you need to get in?)

• Bachelorxe2x80x99s degree in Information Systems or related field is required
• 8 xe2x80x93 10 IT Experience, with 5 in a leadership role,
• Data centre networking architect/solutions design/engineering background is preferred.
• Demonstrable experience in managing high speed (25Gig, 100Gig) data centre networks is advantageous.
• Demonstrable experience in understanding data centre hosting requirements such as Ethernet LAN cabling (fibre and copper), equipment racking and stacking, power and cooling requirements is advantageous.
• Demonstrable experience in managing infrastructure hardware and software lifecycle is advantageous.
• Demonstrable experience in the use of incident and problem management ticketing systems (e.g. ServiceNow).
• Managing vendor SLAxe2x80x99s and business unit OLAxe2x80x99s.
• Managing service improvement programmes.
• Participation in root cause analysis and reporting.

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

Absa