Devops & Infrastructure Team Lead

Smoke Customer Intelligence; Gauteng; On-site; ZAR 800 000 - 1 200 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading customer intelligence firm seeks a DevOps and Infrastructure Lead to transform their traditional infrastructure into a modern, DevOps-driven capability. This leadership role demands expertise in AWS, automation, and system reliability. The successful candidate will drive culture change and collaborate with various teams to ensure optimal performance, security, and compliance within the infrastructure. Join us to lead innovation and improve operational excellence across the organization.

Benefits

Annual performance bonus

15 days annual leave

Employee Group Cover benefits

Qualifications

• Minimum 7 years' experience in infrastructure or system administration.
• Minimum 3 years' experience in a leadership or team management role.
• Minimum 2 years' experience working with AWS and DevOps practices.
• Knowledge of ISO and experience with compliance.
• Demonstrable experience in infrastructure automation.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and management of hosting environments on AWS.
• Implement Infrastructure-as-Code using Terraform and Ansible.
• Ensure 99.7% uptime through monitoring and observability strategies.
• Work closely with Development teams to align infrastructure practices.
• Champion security, compliance, and documentation processes.

Skills

Infrastructure automation

AWS

Leadership

Automation scripting

Security compliance

Documentation skills

Education

Formal tertiary qualification in IT or related field

Certifications such as AWS Certified SysOps Administrator

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

AWS CloudWatch

NGINX

MySQL

MongoDB

Job description

Job Title

DevOps and Infrastructure Lead

Location

Olivedale, Johannesburg

Purpose of the job

The DevOps & Infrastructure Lead is responsible for guiding our traditional Infrastructure and Tier 2 Support function through a structured transformation into a DevOps-driven capability.

This is a leadership role that combines operational accountability with strategic direction to ensure the stability, scalability and modernisation of all infrastructure and hosting environments that underpin the Eyerys platform and other critical systems.

Transformation Mandate

Establish and embed Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) practices across all hosting environments.

Implement observability and monitoring frameworks.

Collaborate with Development to support containerisation, CI / CD and release automation.

Drive process automation and AI-enabled efficiencies to reduce manual operational overhead.

Maintain stability, uptime and compliance across all existing systems during the transformation.

Responsibilities

Infrastructure, Automation and Observability

Lead the design, automation and lifecycle management of all hosting environments across AWS and on-premise infrastructure.

Implement and maintain IaC using tools such as Terraform and Ansible, ensuring deployments are automated, version-controlled and repeatable.

Establish comprehensive monitoring and observability across servers, databases and application services, using AWS CloudWatch and other tools to maintain at least 99.7% uptime.

Analyse trends, resolve recurring issues through automation and continuously improve system reliability and performance.

DevOps Collaboration and Enablement

Work closely with the Development team to align infrastructure and DevOps practices, supporting CI / CD pipelines, containerisation, release automation and environment parity.

Champion developer enablement through internal platform tooling, improved deployment workflows and automation of repetitive operational tasks.

Ensure consistency, security and scalability across all environments through shared standards and collaboration.

Security, Compliance and Process Governance

Enforce ISO : technical controls and ensure secure configurations, access management, patching and vulnerability remediation.

Collaborate with the Client Services Team Lead and Development Manager on shared information security responsibilities, including risk management, DR testing and audit readiness.

Maintain a robust change management process, ensuring all infrastructure and hosting changes follow CAB approval, documentation and post-implementation review.

Systems, Domains and Tools Management

Oversee the stability, performance and lifecycle of AWS and on-premise environments, including EC2, VPC, Fargate, SQS, RDS and related services.

Manage Linux, NGINX, PHP runtimes, MySQL and MongoDB systems to ensure reliable backup, recovery and capacity planning.

Maintain the organisation's domains, DNS and MS environments, ensuring availability, compliance and best-practice configuration.

Documentation and Knowledge Management

Maintain up-to-date documentation including infrastructure diagrams, SOPs and architecture artefacts aligned with audit and quality standards.

Foster a documentation-first culture, ensuring consistent contribution and knowledge sharing across the team.

Leadership and Culture

Lead and mentor the Systems Administration team, developing capability and ownership while promoting accountability and innovation.

Represent the DevOps and Infrastructure function within the Operational Committee (OpCo) and drive collaboration with Development, Data and Client teams.

Model SmokeCI values : visibility, proactivity, continuous improvement and delivery excellence.

Demonstrate strategic understanding of infrastructure and DevOps principles.

Lead transformation initiatives and drive cultural change.

Deep knowledge of automation, observability and cloud infrastructure.

Balance operational stability with innovation and continuous improvement.

Effective cross-team collaborator with strong communication and documentation skills.

Strong sense of accountability, ownership and quality assurance.

Encourage professional growth and learning within the team.

Qualifications

Minimum 7 years' experience in infrastructure or system administration.

Minimum 3 years' experience in a leadership or team management role.

Minimum 2 years' experience working with AWS and DevOps practices.

Knowledge and experience with ISO : , including implementation and compliance preferred.

Experience with CAB processes, patching cycles and disaster recovery frameworks.

Demonstrable experience in infrastructure automation (e.g. Ansible, scripting, CI / CD pipelines).

Familiarity with managing internal tooling and supporting custom platforms (advantageous).

Prior experience in a B2B SME environment preferred.

Formal tertiary qualification in IT or related field advantageous but not required.

Certifications such as AWS Certified SysOps Administrator, AWS Certified DevOps Engineer, CompTIA Linux+, ITIL or ISO Lead Implementer advantageous.

Equivalent experience in lieu of formal qualification will be fully considered.

Salary & Benefits

Insured Benefits through employee Group Cover (Life Insurance, Disability & Funeral).

15 days annual leave, plus additional free gifted leave for the annual shutdown between Christmas and New Year.

Annual performance bonus.

Equal Opportunity Employer

SmokeCI is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

We encourage applications from all qualified individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability.