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
The BAPS Technical team within CIB Payments Technology is looking for a Lead Delivery /Technology Manager that can guide the team in strategic intent and direction.
The division provides systems and capabilities to process both Incoming and Off-Absa cross-border payments via SWIFT across 10 countries.
Our aim is to provide a consistent experience to our customers across Pan-Africa.
As a team, we continuously strive to streamline our processes and ways of working in our Agile environment and create room for innovation.
Job Description
Critical skills and experience required:
- 8+ years Analysis experience
- Relevant B-Degree in Computer Science OR; equivalent level of industry certification in Technical field preferred but not essential if minimum requirements of experience & practical application is evident
- Experience & proven track record defining enterprise wide technical strategies single / limited product / service environment
- Experience in leading small medium sized multifaceted teams
- Experience as an agile practitioner and knowledge or experience of other delivery methodologies e.g. Kanban, RUP etc.
- Excellent communication, analytical skills and decision making ability in collaborative environments
- Excellent documentation skills
- Ability and experience in building sustainable relationships with stakeholders
- Technical leadership, critical thinking
- Payment systems experience
- Open Source technologies (PostgreSQL)
- MS SQL
- AWS
- Rancher
- Bigdata experience (Kafka, Hadoop)
- Azure DevOps.
- International Payment experience
Product & Service Direction Setting, Solution Design & Performance Management
- Work with the CIO & business product owners to define the product & technical strategy (Full Stack End to End)
- Act as the single point of partnership & assume responsibility for managing the senior business interface (product owner) relationship
- Assume one stop shop accountability for the delivery of the product & solutions (risk cannot be outsourced to vendors)
- Apply design thinking practices to deliver architecturally sound technical product & service solutions (and explain / guide / coach others on this architecture holistically and technically)
- Lead & facilitate the design of the product & or service solution blueprints aligned to the organization strategy (Short, Medium & Long Term)
- Collaborate across the tech value chain (ITO, Business Tech etc.) to guide the business on the appropriate technical solution (cost to value) & the range of strategic technical choices to be made
- Lead the detailed scoping, prioritisation & integration planning for the design & deployment of products & services with & across multiple stakeholder groups (Front End, Back End & Integration) (aligned to solution blueprints)
- 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.
- Meaningfully contribute & ensure solutions align to the design and direction of the Group Infrastructure standards and practices e.g. OLAs, IAAS, PAAS, SAAS, Containerisation etc.
- Strategically & operationally monitor the performance of products and services (all applications) ensuring ongoing optimization & cost to value for our businesses (think bank wide)
- Leverage the required expert level (own) skill & knowledge in architecture & Infrastructure, design and manage all development & development practices & outputs across squads (apply knowledge on virtualization, containerization, automation, storage & serverless technologies (e.g. AWS, Azure, Google, & on prem-Cloud, etc.)
- Ensure the most optimal design & deployment of technical products and services in the organization (via pipeline not manually)
- Design & Implement Automation Testing, Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery Strategies & frameworks across squads for effective solution development & deployment (understand and apply expert knowledge in e.g. Kubernetes, Jenkins, TeamCity, Arifactory, MS Powershell, Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) Tools, APM Tools (e.g. NewRelic & Splunk) etc.
- Ensure solution designs deliver on the key technical principles of: self-service, repeatability, testability, scalability & resilience
- Guide code development practices and processes through an understanding of complex concepts and developmental practices such as threading, parallel processing, asynchronous programming, domain driven design, lambdas etc. & coding language expertise (e.g. Java, C++, Groovy, Python, Bash, Perl, Ruby etc.)
- Guide & ensure the delivery of quality development (code) based on own experience in developing across a range of applications including but not limited to: server side, client side, web (SOAP, REST, JSON), socket based programming, batch & real time, building architectural patterns, security / security domains)
- Effectively manage the DevOps pipeline & associated releases for maximum customer impact & minimum business risk
- Manage the maintenance & optimization of applications, products & services as a way of doing things / culture within the development teams. You are fully accountable for the longevity of applications aligned to Group Architectural practices.
- Coach & Mentor senior developers across squads on the technical competencies to effectively deliver on DevOps solutions (see Dev competency model in skills & competencies section). To do this, display proficiency in the Senior level competency requirements.
- With fluency in the deployment of agile methodologies, resource & manage the appropriate number and nature (skill & capability) of squad based teams to execute on both Run & Change elements of delivery
- Work in collaboration with transformation & change teams for effective resourcing and delivery management of various programmes at all levels (SI, BU etc.)
- Ensure agile practices are implemented and sustained for effective delivery to business e.g. RETROs etc.
- Positively & proactively manage product owner relationships including building product owner technical capability to enable balanced & best fit decision making
- Proactively engage with & partner CTO, CSO, SE, Risk and broader enablement functions to drive alignment & leading practice in technology design & deployment
- Set & Cascade Product & Service direction across squads
- 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 in all squad related activity to drive a higher quality design and deployment of technical products and services
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
