AI Operations Engineer

Collinson Group; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive reward package

Job summary

Collinson Group in Cape Town invites an AI Ops Engineer to lead operationalising AI-powered workflows across the organisation. You will ensure deployment, security, and reliable support of AI tools (Entra, Salesforce, Mindflow, Claude) in day-to-day operations.

You will implement IaC, manage credentials and access, oversee integrations, monitor health, and drive governance. Collaboration with Technology, Security, Product and Business teams is essential to deliver scalable, compliant AI

Qualifications

• Experience managing AI-powered applications in production.
• Strong knowledge of identity and access management.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/Azure) and security best practices.
• Ability to troubleshoot across multiple systems and vendors.
• Experience with monitoring tools like CloudWatch is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead the operational management of AI-powered workflows, applications and agents; establish ownership and standards.
• Coordinate deployment of AI applications across environments with documented setup processes.
• Ensure AWS/Azure environments are correctly configured, secure and observable.
• Manage environment credentials and dependency mapping for multi-environment deployment.
• Improve repeatability via IaC and automated deployment controls to reduce risk.
• Oversee credentials, permissions and access controls using Entra and Salesforce.

Skills

AI operations

Identity platforms (Entra)

Cloud platforms (AWS/Azure)

API integration

IaC (Terraform/CloudFormation/CDK)

Deployment automation

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

Microsoft Entra

Salesforce

Mindflow

Claude

Terraform

CloudFormation

CDK

Job description

Job Description

The Role

As an AI Ops Engineer, you play a central leadership role in operationalising AI-powered workflows, applications and agents across the organisation. Your purpose is to ensure that AI capabilities, delivered through platforms such as Microsoft Entra, Salesforce, Mindflow and Claude, are reliably deployed, securely configured and effectively supported in day-to-day business operations.

You are not responsible for building AI models or developing core algorithms. Instead, you are accountable for the operational layer that enables AI to function within real-world workflows: application deployment, identity and access configuration, credential management, agent orchestration, integration governance and user support. You contribute hands‑on to prototyping, scripting and operational automation where needed to establish reliable patterns for AI deployment and support.

You create the conditions for AI-powered tools and automations to run safely, consistently and at scale. This includes ensuring that environments are correctly configured, access is controlled, integrations are stable, and operational processes are well-defined and repeatable. You lead the operational rhythms around AI systems, establishing clear standards for deployment, access control, support and lifecycle management. You ensure that AI workflows are production-ready, compliant with organisational policies, and aligned with business needs.

A key part of your role is translating AI initiatives into operational reality: coordinating the rollout of AI applications and agents, managing dependencies across systems, and maintaining visibility over usage, issues and risks. You ensure that problems are identified quickly, resolved effectively and used as inputs for continuous improvement.

You act as the integrator across Technology, Security, Product and Business teams, bringing clarity to how AI tools are configured, accessed and supported. You provide visibility into operational risks, access patterns, system dependencies and areas of friction. Ultimately, your purpose is to build a robust, scalable AI operations capability that ensures AI workflows and tools are dependable, secure and easy to use, enabling the organisation to confidently embed AI into everyday business processes.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the operational management of AI-powered workflows, applications and agents across the organisation; establish clear ownership, standards and ways of working.
• Coordinate deployment of AI applications, agents and integrations across environments; ensure consistent, repeatable and well documented setup processes.
• Ensure the AWS, Azure and related cloud environments that support AI workflows, applications and agents are correctly configured, secure, observable and operationally ready across development, test and production environments.
• Manage environment-specific configuration, secrets, credentials and dependency mapping to ensure AI agents and workflows can be deployed, changed and supported consistently across multiple environments.
• Improve repeatability and control of AI operations through infrastructure-as-code, automated configuration, deployment controls and rollback mechanisms; reduce manual setup and operational risk.
• Oversee setup and governance of credentials, permissions and access controls using platforms such as Microsoft Entra and Salesforce; ensure secure and appropriate access to AI tools and workflows.
• Manage the lifecycle of AI agents and automations, including configuration, updates, version control and decommissioning; ensure agents operate reliably within defined parameters.
• Maintain and govern integrations between AI tools and enterprise platforms (e.g. Salesforce, Mindflow, internal systems); ensure stability, security and performance of connections.
• Own support processes for AI workflows and tools; manage incidents, troubleshoot issues, and coordinate resolution across technical teams and vendors.
• Diagnose and coordinate resolution of issues spanning cloud infrastructure, identity platforms, SaaS applications, APIs, workflow tooling and agent orchestration layers.
• Track system usage, access patterns, workflow execution and operational health; identify anomalies, inefficiencies or risks and take corrective action.
• Ensure adherence to organisational policies around security, data protection, access control and responsible use of AI tools; embed governance into operational processes.
• Develop and maintain clear operational playbooks, runbooks and documentation for deployment, support, troubleshooting and access management.
• Develop and maintain runbooks, recovery procedures and operational standards covering deployment failure, degraded integrations, access issues, alert response and service restoration.
• Work closely with Technology, Security, Product and Business teams to align on requirements, prioritisation and operational standards for AI workflows.
• Manage relationships with AI platform providers (e.g. Microsoft, Salesforce, Anthropic, Mindflow); coordinate support, escalations and feature adoption.
• Identify opportunities to improve reliability, usability, security and efficiency of AI operations; evolve processes and tooling as adoption grows.

Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours

Essential

• Experience managing or supporting AI-powered applications, automations or workflow tools in a production business environment.
• Strong familiarity with identity platforms such as Microsoft Entra, including role-based access control, authentication flows and credential governance.
• Experience working with platforms such as Salesforce, automation tools like Mindflow, and AI interfaces such as Claude or similar.
• Understanding of how systems integrate via APIs, connectors and workflows; ability to manage and troubleshoot cross-platform dependencies.
• Proven ability to diagnose and resolve issues in live environments, coordinating across multiple systems and stakeholders.
• Experience implementing and using operational monitoring tools such as CloudWatch to track logs, metrics, alerts and runtime health in live environments.
• Experience managing environments, configurations, credentials and deployment processes across SaaS and cloud platforms.
• Practical experience supporting applications, automations or integrations in AWS, Azure or similar cloud environments, with familiarity across environment setup, configuration, access control, logging, monitoring and operational troubleshooting.
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code and deployment automation approaches such as Terraform, CloudFormation, CDK or equivalent, with a bias for repeatability, auditability and safe change.
• Strong understanding of access control, data protection, auditability and secure configuration practices in enterprise environments.
• Ability to design clear, scalable operational processes and produce high-quality documentation and runbooks.
• Ability to work effectively with technical teams, business users and vendors; translate operational issues into clear, actionable insights.
• Clear and confident communicator, able to explain workflows, issues and resolutions to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong coordination skills, able to manage multiple workflows, dependencies and priorities simultaneously.
• Curious and proactive in identifying ways to improve AI workflow reliability, usability and operational efficiency.
• Collaborative and supportive leadership style, with a focus on enabling teams and building confidence in AI tools across the organisation.

Reward & Benefits: What's in it for me?

We want our people to feel recognised, supported and able to thrive both at work and beyond it.

• We offer a competitive reward package designed to support your financial, physical and mental wellbeing, alongside opportunities to learn, develop and be recognised for the contribution you make.

Benefits vary by role and location, and full details will be shared as part of the application process.

Equal opportunities: Our commitment to inclusion

Collinson Group is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, identities and experiences, and believe that different perspectives make our business stronger.