Platform Operations Lead (AWS / Kubernetes / DevOps) (Johannesburg Hybrid)

SUMMARY:
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POSITION INFO:

ENVIRONMENT:

Our client develops next-generation banking technology that enables financial institutions to launch innovative, compliant digital products faster and more reliably. Their core offering is a white-labelled, cashflow-based business lending platform that enables banks to provide pre-approved, variable-repayment loans to SMEs through digital origination and real-time loan management.  They are seeking a Platform Operations Lead to build, automate and manage the infrastructure and support capabilities underpinning their platform across multiple client environments. This hands-on technical leadership role covers cloud and container platforms, deployment automation, observability, operational reliability, incident response and technical support.

DUTIES:

•       Build and maintain secure, repeatable AWS infrastructure across the core platform and independently deployed client environments.

•       Manage Kubernetes-based environments, including OpenShift and K3s, together with networking, ingress and supporting platform services.

•       Develop and maintain reusable CI/CD pipelines, Helm charts, deployment configurations and Argo CD workflows.

•       Establish consistent release practices across development, QA, UAT and production environments.

•       Apply software development governance standards to significant infrastructure, deployment and platform changes.

•       Review application and platform changes for deployability, observability, security, recovery and support impact.

•       Ensure production changes include appropriate validation, rollback and recovery plans.

•       Maintain traceable technical evidence for platform changes, including requirements, approvals, test results, rollback considerations and release notes.

•       Maintain current architecture, deployment, environment and operational documentation.

•       Work with Engineering to ensure applications are deployable, observable and operationally supportable.

•       Automate repetitive infrastructure, deployment, environment-management and support activities.

•       Implement and maintain production monitoring, logging, health checks, alerting and operational dashboards.

•       Lead the investigation and resolution of infrastructure, deployment and platform-related incidents.

•       Establish support runbooks, incident procedures, escalation paths and handover practices.

•       Ensure incidents are properly triaged before being escalated to Engineering.

•       Build and mature the Platform Operations and Technical Support function as the international client base grows.

•       Mentor DevOps Support and Application/Production Support Engineers.

•       Participate in production support and on-call activities.

•       Support secure client deployments and controlled upgrades across independently managed banking environments.

•       Support SOC 2 compliance activities through Vanta, including control maintenance, evidence collection, remediation tracking and audit preparation.

•       Collaborate with the Head of Technology, Technical Architect and Engineering team to establish common infrastructure, deployment, security and operational standards.

REQUIREMENTS:

•       Relevant degree, diploma or equivalent practical experience.

•       Strong hands-on experience operating production workloads on AWS or a comparable public cloud platform.

•       Practical experience with Docker and containerised environments.

•       Production experience with Kubernetes.

•       Exposure to OpenShift and K3s would be advantageous.

•       Experience developing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation and GitOps workflows.

•       Experience with infrastructure automation and configuration-management practices.

•       Strong Linux, networking, DNS, TLS certificate, reverse proxy, ingress and application-connectivity knowledge.

•       Experience with monitoring, logging, alerting, troubleshooting and incident response.

•       Experience supporting security controls, vulnerability remediation and compliance evidence would be advantageous.

•       Experience supporting regulated banking or financial services environments is strongly preferred.

•       Experience mentoring or leading Platform Operations, DevOps or Technical Support teams would be beneficial.

ATTRIBUTES:

•       Strong collaborator who works effectively with developers, architects and technical leadership.

•       Automation-first and improvement-focused mindset.

•       Excellent troubleshooting ability across infrastructure, networking, containers and deployment pipelines.

•       Sound technical judgement when balancing reliability, security, operational risk and delivery requirements.

•       Able to explain the purpose, impact, risk and recovery approach associated with platform changes.

•       Calm, structured and communicative during incidents.

•       Comfortable working with ambiguity and evolving requirements.

•       Strong mentoring and technical leadership capabilities.

•       Accountable for reliability, security, confidentiality and support quality.

•       Understands the distinction between platform operations, technical support and application development.

•       Uses AI-assisted engineering tools responsibly within approved security and governance controls while remaining accountable for validating and documenting all resulting changes.