SENIOR TECH SPECIALIST

Senior Technical Specialist

The Organisation
Multichoice Group is a broad-based multinational media and entertainment group headquartered in South Africa, Dubai and Netherlands with principal operations in pay television, video entertainment, advertising and content security serving rapidly growing base of 13,5 million households. Eminent brands within the Group include DSTV, GOTv, SuperSport, M-net, DSTVnow, Showmax and Europe based content security leader Irdeto. Key areas of operations are:
⦁ Storytelling ranging from content creation, production and aggregation including the best global general entertainment, sport and eminent African content library, delivered to customers
⦁ Pay Television: direct-to-home satellite and digital terrestrial television services;
⦁ SVOD: subscription video on demand services across multiple online platforms with a focus on library and local content in developing markets, and
⦁ Advertising: providing dynamic media solutions; handling commercial airtime, on-air sponsorships, content integration, and online sales across a variety of 130+ channel brands on linear TV, VOD, social media, and digital platforms.
The group’s strength lies in its focus on local language and culture, its entrepreneurial spirit and the quality of its workforce. Multichoice Group has a successful history of identifying trends early, adapting them for the markets in which it operates and leveraging them to maximum advantage. The group generates revenues primarily through subscription model, with a growing contribution from advertising revenue. Its key objectives are to:
⦁ Expand Pay TV, SVOD subscriber base and Advertising sales
⦁ Focus on investment and technology
⦁ Maintain a local approach
⦁ Provide quality service
⦁ Attract innovative and motivated employees
Position Name Intermediate Webmethods Position ID <Leave blank for now>
Reports to Manager Self Service Support
Direct Reports N/A
Division EBS Department Service Operations
Band <Leave blank for now>
Org Structure
(provided by Accenture)

Key Customers MAL, SA Corporate and Country Operations
Location South Africa, Johannesburg, Randburg
Purpose of the Position:
⦁ Provide high quality application and systems support
⦁ The role will be part of a multi-disciplinary team consisting of application specialists and delivery experts.
⦁ Development Experience in Webmethods Integration Server, broker, Trading networks, Designer.
⦁ Development Experience in Webmethods adapters, JDBC, Flat files and EDI DB programming.

Key Performance Objectives Tasks

Operational Delivery ⦁ Provide high quality operational and technical application and systems support to customers and internal business functions.
⦁ To oversee the workload of a specialized team of application support specialists, ensuring they are capable, motivated, and actively engaged in their work.
⦁ Resolve incidents, problems, service requests and change requests in line with business priorities:
⦁ Resolve calls logged within the agreed MTTR (Mean time to resolve) included in agreed SLAs
⦁ Ensure Incident / Request updates are at an acceptable quality
⦁ Installation of webMethods components and applying patches deployments using Deployer.

⦁ Troubleshooting experiences of Integration Server, Broker, Trading Networks, Enterprise Gateway / Reverse Invoke Troubleshooting issues related to threads, memory, sessions Analyzing thread dumps and finding root causes of server crashes IS Clustering using terracotta and Broker Active Passive clustering.

⦁ Document and provide analysis of defects to solution teams.
⦁ Create diagnostic scripts and other aids per system e.g. simple diagnostic question sheets, historical records, known error lists, predefined extract scripts, etc.
⦁ Collaborate with the Solution Delivery teams and Architectural teams with regards to planning, designing, architecture development and configuration of the technical platforms for the Application Support portfolio
⦁ To be responsible for the support of critical business systems, to priorities workloads and effectively manage issues to ensure optimal service.
⦁ Be available to the business and support leads for operational support

Continuous Improvement ⦁ Ensure the consistency and stability of the environment and produce SOPs for day-to-day operations.
⦁ Minimize adverse impacts of Incidents and Problems on the business and preventing reoccurrence of Incidents.
⦁ Proactively monitoring of and fixing system and data related errors.
⦁ Consult with business to identify business problems and opportunities to enhance existing processes.
⦁ Provide support and maintenance of systems.
⦁ Contribute to continuous improvement by using technology and improving processes.
⦁ Stay current on industry practices and trends.
⦁ Conduct quality control protocols to reduce errors and improve the effectiveness of production systems.

Reporting ⦁ Create monthly reports to track progress of solutions against identified benefits.
Stakeholder Management ⦁ Develop and maintain relationships with key stakeholders across the business.
Qualifications
⦁ Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology or Equivalent
⦁ Honours degrees or postgraduate diplomas Advantageous
Experience
⦁ 5+ years application/platform support experience, 3+ years collaborating closely with technical IT teams.
⦁ Experience working in a high availability environment with multiple operational instances.
Technical Competencies
⦁ Hands-on experience with some of the following disciplines
⦁ Oracle, SQL Server
⦁ Web Methods
⦁ Web Services
⦁ Automation / Scheduling tools / frameworks
⦁ SOA
⦁ SQL
⦁ SharePoint
⦁ F5
⦁ SQL Server Integration Services
⦁ SQL Server Reporting Services
⦁ ESB
⦁ Microsoft Frameworks (CSF, CCF, etc)
⦁ Working knowledge of API-based services (e.g. REST, SOAP)
⦁ Understanding of basic integration concepts
⦁ Basic knowledge of the Agile and Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) processes, cloud computing, ITIL, COBIT
⦁ Facilitation
⦁ Investigative / Fact Finding
⦁ Structured analysis
⦁ Command of the English Language
⦁ Excellent Communication Skills
Behavioral Competencies
⦁ Relationship Building
⦁ Accountability
⦁ Teamwork
⦁ Delegation
⦁ Interpersonal Support
⦁ Perseverance
⦁ Motivating
⦁ Prioritisation
⦁ Analytical Thinking
⦁ Persuading & Influence
⦁ Time Management