The IT Applications Delivery Manager is responsible for the
successful delivery, continuous improvement, and operational excellence
of assigned business applications. This role acts as a
value-enabling partner to Business Owners
, ensuring business needs are clearly translated into deliverable outcomes.
You will
own the technical delivery pipeline
, including DevOps practices such as CI/CD automation, environment readiness, and production support. The goal is to
deliver fit-for-purpose, scalable, and secure applications
that evolve continuously with business needs.
Functional Duties and Responsibilities
Application Delivery Leadership
Lead end-to-end application delivery from ideation to production.
Manage cross-functional teams including analysts, developers, QA engineers, and vendors.
Develop and maintain product delivery roadmaps aligned with business priorities.
Define, implement, and govern the SDLC using Agile and DevOps practices.
Monitor performance and provide delivery reporting to stakeholders.
Partnership & Co-Ownership
Serve as a co-product owner with Business Owners.
Prioritise features with stakeholders, balancing value, risk, and feasibility.
Define value metrics, MVP scope, and acceptance criteria.
Govern lifecycle activities: stakeholder validation, feedback incorporation, and roadmap evolution.
The responsibilities contained in this document are not exhaustive and management reserves the right to instruct the employee to carry out additional duties or responsibilities which may fall reasonably within the ambit of the position profile or in accordance with operational requirements.
Support budgeting, forecasting, and resource planning.
Maintain the product backlog and delivery roadmap.
Own and govern the CI/CD pipeline, build automation, and deployment processes.
Enforce modern engineering practices:
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Automated testing and quality gates
Secure release automation
Govern deployment operations:
Rollback procedures
Monitoring and incident triage
Operational readiness
Ensure infrastructure alignment (cloud-native/hybrid environments).
Govern the full lifecycle: design, deploy, support, and decommission.
Manage:
Versioning and change control
Patch management
Handover and documentation
End-of-life readiness
Act as the primary liaison and performance manager for outsourced teams and solution partners.
Establish and manage:
SLAs and milestones
Onboarding and integration quality
Continuous improvement processes
Evaluate partner performance and resolve blockers or quality issues.
Lead structured stakeholder engagement:
Demo sessions
UAT planning
Backlog and roadmap reviews
Implement governance mechanisms:
Risk and issue tracking
Escalation protocols
Report on:
Delivery progress and metrics
Application health and incident trends
DevOps maturity and technical risk
Budget and vendor performance
Lead Quarterly Business Reviews or formal steering meetings as needed.
Champion Agile and Lean practices.
Lead:
Retrospectives and improvement planning
Delivery KPIs (DORA, lead time, defect rates)
Root cause analysis and improvement loops
Ensure all practices align with policies and regulatory frameworks.
Govern:
Audit logging and traceability
Security scanning and application controls
Collaborate with risk/security teams to align with POPIA, CIS, NIST, etc.
Core Skills
Strategic thinker with strong delivery discipline
Systems thinking and analytical mindset
Strong collaboration across business and technical teams
Resilience and comfort with ambiguity
Growth mindset and continuous learning attitude
Clear, confident communication with technical and executive audiences
Strong prioritisation and organisational skills
Strategic Purpose & ValueThis role will act as the metaphorical "COO" of all applications and systems -- responsible for developing, maintaining, improving, and rolling out systems across the business, this position is also expected to create strategic roadmaps and drive DevOps maturity within the first 6-month success = Progress in DevOps metrics and process maturity and 12-month success = Roadmaps for major applications, Odoo delivery, and warehouse app/automation rollout.
Scope & Boundaries
Responsible for all IT systems, including leading the rollout of new systems. Not responsible for operational support (e.g., bug fixing, KPI tracking) of existing systems -- this sits outside the scope.
Team & Structure
Will initially lead the Business Analyst, with a Scrum Master joining in future phases and will also manage and guide external development resources.
Stakeholder Relationships
Key stakeholders include internal Project Owners and external Service Providers and strong collaboration will be needed across business functions.
Leadership & Influence
This is a senior leadership role with expected engagement at SLT level.
Technical Competencies
Qualifications / Certificates
Education:
Bachelor's in Computer Science / IS / Engineering; Master's advantageous