Head Of Platform Operations

Be Different Sa; Gauteng; On-site; ZAR 1 200 000 - 1 500 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology firm in South Africa is seeking an experienced senior leader for IT operations. This role requires over 12 years in IT operations, including 5 years in senior leadership. Key responsibilities include defining operational strategies for infrastructure and application operations, ensuring compliance with South African regulations, and fostering high-performance team culture. Strong expertise in multi-cloud environments (Azure, AWS, GCP) is essential. Excellent leadership and communication skills are crucial for success.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of IT operations experience with at least 5 years in senior leadership roles.
• Strong expertise across infrastructure (compute, network, storage, hybrid/cloud).
• Knowledge of South African legal/regulatory frameworks and global best practices.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute platform operations strategy across infrastructure and application operations.
• Oversee infrastructure operations ensuring uptime and performance.
• Lead end-to-end application operations, including deployment and performance optimization.

Skills

Leadership skills

Communication skills

Client engagement

Cost optimization

Incident management

Risk mitigation

Tools

Azure

AWS

GCP

Kubernetes

Docker

Job description

In order to be considered the following is required : 12+ years' IT operations experience with at least 5 years in senior leadership roles

Strong expertise across infrastructure (compute, network, storage, hybrid / cloud), Paa S platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, Open Shift) and application operations

Proven track record in managing multi-cloud and hybrid enterprise environments

Demonstrated experience in ITSM, AIOps, observability, and large-scale service delivery

Knowledge of South African legal / regulatory frameworks and global best practices (POPIA, Cybercrimes Act, ISO )

Vendor / OEM management and contract execution experience

Exceptional leadership, communication and client engagement skills

SLA compliance across infrastructure, Paa S and application layers

Mean time to detect (MTTD) and resolve (MTTR) incidents

Service availability, reliability and performance improvements

Customer satisfaction and value realization outcomes

Cost optimization and resource utilization efficiency

Team performance, skill maturity and retention

Compliance audit success and risk mitigation effectiveness Duties & Responsibilities : Strategic & Operational Leadership : Define and execute platform operations strategy, covering infrastructure, Paa S and application operations

Integrate operations across compute, storage, networking, Paa S layers and business-critical applications

Represent Platform Operations in Service Management Centre (SMC) and across horizontal and vertical forums

Align platform and application operations to strategic imperatives : growth, customer centricity, innovation, compliance and operational excellence

Infrastructure & Platform Operations : Oversee all infrastructure operations (on-premises, hybrid, and cloud : Azure, AWS, GCP)

Ensure uptime, scalability, and performance of infrastructure services

Govern Paa S operations : container orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker, Open Shift), middleware, and integration platforms

Establish resilient DR, BCP, and capacity management across infrastructure and platform layers

Drive automation, observability, and AIOps-led monitoring across infrastructure and Paa S services

Application Operations : Lead end-to-end application operations (App Ops), including deployment, lifecycle management, monitoring and performance optimization.

Govern incident, problem, and change management for critical applications, ensuring minimal downtime

Partner with development and Dev Ops teams for CI / CD pipelines, release management, and security compliance

Drive business application adoption, value realization and performance improvements for clients

Governance, Compliance & Risk : Establish policies, standards, and work instructions covering infrastructure, platform, and application operations

Ensure compliance with South African legislation (POPIA, PFMA, FSCA / PA, Cybercrimes Act) and international standards (ISO , ITIL 4)

Govern data sovereignty requirements (e.g. SAPS data remaining within South Africa)

Manage risk and issue registers, with proactive mitigation and escalation processes Stakeholder & Client Engagement : Serve as the senior operational leader for infrastructure, platform, and application matters across clients

Support client executives in value realization forums, operational reviews and executive governance sessions

Manage escalations with OEMs and partners (Science Logic, Motadata, Seceon, Corr Serve, Resolve)

Demonstrate measurable value outcomes (cost savings, performance improvements, SLA compliance) in client engagements

People & Performance Leadership : Lead, mentor, and manage cross-functional teams (infrastructure engineers, platform specialists, application support teams, operations managers)

Define clear RASCI matrices, balanced scorecards, and KPIs for each role under Platform Operations

Foster a high-performance culture, embedding ethics and workforce framework across remote and onsite teams

Ensure continuous learning, certification, and professional development

Innovation & Continuous Improvement : Drive maturity through Foundation, Crawl, Walk, Run model

Advance automation, self-healing, and autonomous IT practices

Introduce and operationalize new service capabilities : CMDBaa S, Observability-as-a-Service, AIOps-as-a-Service, and Autonomous IT-as-a-Service

Ensure cost efficiency, workload optimization, and continuous service improvements If you would like to email your CV directly – please send it to

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