IT Operations Lead

Ecowize - Southern Africa; Milnerton; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Ecowize - Southern Africa is seeking an IT Operations Lead to own day-to-day stability, performance, and security of our infrastructure. You will be the primary escalation point for operational issues and manage our vendor and consulting ecosystem.

You will establish an incident response framework, lead 24/7 coverage, and drive governance with MSPs and IT partners while guiding the internal service desk to technical ownership.

Responsibilities

• Establish and execute the incident response framework as primary escalation point.
• Act as the Crisis Commander for outages and safeguard the issue until escalation.
• Create and manage a 24/7 on-call rotation and monitoring coverage.
• Interface with MSPs and IT consultants to ensure SLAs are met.
• Mentor and manage the IT service desk team for autonomy and ownership.
• Translate operational data into weekly health metrics for Head of IT.
• Differentiate critical issues from noise to reduce EXCO escalations.
• Own day-to-day stability, performance, and security of Ecowize's infrastructure.
• Coordinate with IT Systems Owners on the health of business-critical applications.

Job description

At Ecowize, we rely on our IT systems to keep the business running reliably every day. We are seeking an experienced IT Operations Lead who can take full ownership of the day-to-day stability, performance, and security of our infrastructure.

In this role, you will act as the primary escalation point for all operational issues and manage our vendor and consulting ecosystem.

High-Level Job Objectives

Incident & Problem Management

• Establish, maintain, and execute the Business's incident response framework, acting as the primary escalation point for all operational issues.
• Act as the "Crisis Commander" for outages, the final line of defence before an issue reaches the Head of IT.
• Build and own a formal on-call rotation and 24/7 alerting coverage, closing the current gap in after-hours monitoring.

Vendor & Consultant Governance

• Hold external partners to account for delivery quality and contracted service levels, ensuring SLAs are met and issues are resolved without unnecessary escalation.
• Serve as the primary interface for external MSPs and IT consultants (including Netsurit, First Technology, and Vikele), ensuring SLAs are met.
• Progressively insource security alert triage, reducing the Business's reliance on external partners over time.

Team Development & Leadership

• Mentor and manage the internal service desk / tactical team (IT Engineers), building a culture of autonomy and technical ownership.
• Support the professional growth of team members through coaching, delegation, and structured development.
• Coordinate day-to-day workload and priorities across the operational team.

Operational Reporting & Governance

• Translate messy technical data into clean, operational health metrics for the Head of IT on a weekly basis.
• Distinguish genuine business-critical issues from operational noise, reducing unnecessary escalations reaching the EXCO.
• Flag vendor SLA items that require the Head of IT's direct relationship intervention.

Infrastructure Stability, Security & Compliance

• Own the day-to-day stability, performance, and security of Ecowize's infrastructure.
• Ensure IT operations align with cybersecurity, governance and POPIA-aligned compliance standards.
• Coordinate with IT Systems Owners on the operational health of business-critical applications.