Operations Support Engineer Johannesburg, South Africa Ai Tech Strategy And Innovation Posted 8[...]

Vodafone Group Plc; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 600 000 - 800 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading telecommunications company in Johannesburg is seeking an experienced Operations Support Engineer to ensure operational excellence across production systems supporting Big Data and Machine Learning platforms. Candidates should have at least 5 years of experience with strong programming skills in Python and SQL, as well as experience with cloud-based technologies. The role involves monitoring production data pipelines, collaborating with teams, and providing regular updates to leadership. Competitive salary and benefits offered.

Benefits

Enticing incentive programs

Retirement funds and medical aid benefits

Cell phone and data benefits

Qualifications

• 5+ years of overall IT experience with Big Data, Advanced Analytics, Data Warehousing.
• Relevant cloud certification at professional or associate level would be advantageous.
• Strong understanding of ITIL frameworks and service management.

Responsibilities

• Monitor and maintain the health of production data and ML pipelines.
• Provide regular updates and reports to leadership on operational status.
• Collaborate with teams to automate operational tasks.

Skills

5+ years of experience in Big Data, ML Operations Support

Strong programming skills in Python and SQL

Experience with cloud-based data technologies

Agile exposure, Kanban, or Scrum

Strong communication and collaboration skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Docker

CI/CD tools

Monitoring tools (e.g. Prometheus, Grafana)

Job description

Operations Support Engineer

Johannesburg, South Africa

Role Purpose / Business Unit

The job role for Operations Support Engineer is to ensure operational excellence across all production systems supporting Big Data and Machine Learning platforms.

Responsibilities

• Monitor and maintain the health of production data and ML pipelines, platforms, and services.
• Perform root cause analysis and resolution of production incidents.
• Manage and coordinate incident response, escalation, and communication.
• Ensure timely resolution of support tickets and service requests.
• Implement and manage ITIL processes including Incident, Problem, Change, and Release Management.
• Maintain service documentation, runbooks, and operational procedures.
• Participate in CAB reviews and ensure compliance with change protocols.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance system reliability and performance.
• Collaborate with DevOps, MLOps, and Platform Engineering teams to automate operational tasks.
• Track and report on SLAs, SLOs, and KPIs for operational services.
• Set up and maintain monitoring, alerting, and logging systems.
• Ensure visibility into system performance and proactively identify issues.
• Support observability tooling and dashboards for platform health.
• Act as the first point of contact for production-related issues.
• Liaise with internal teams and external vendors to resolve operational challenges.
• Provide regular updates and reports to leadership on operational status and risks.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Engineering, or related field.
• 5+ years of experience in Big Data, ML Operations Support.
• Experience with cloud-based data technologies such as AWS, GCP or Azure.
• 5+ years of overall IT experience with Big Data, Advanced Analytics, Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence.
• Relevant cloud certification at professional or associate level would be advantageous.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.
• Agile exposure, Kanban, or Scrum.
• In-depth knowledge of data as a product & Information best practices.
• Experience in using a wide range of data tools such as AWS services – S3, SFTP, Glue, EMR (Spark), Airflow, Athena, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, KMS, Kinesis, OpenSearch, etc.
• Strong understanding of ITIL frameworks and service management.
• Experience in production support for data platforms, ML systems, or cloud infrastructure.
• Familiarity with monitoring tools (e.g. Prometheus, Grafana, PostgreSQL).
• Knowledge of incident and change management workflows.
• Excellent troubleshooting, communication, and documentation skills.
• Working experience with Cloud platforms such as AWS and GCP.
• Working experience with Kubernetes and Docker containers.
• Working experience with CI/CD, IaC and DevOps tools such as CDK, CodePipeline, etc.
• Strong programming skills in Python and SQL.

Benefits

• Enticing incentive programs and competitive benefit packages.
• Retirement funds, risk benefits, and medical aid benefits.
• Cell phone and data benefits, fiber connection discounts, and exclusive staff discounts offered in collaboration with partner companies.

Location & Closing Date

Vodacom, Midrand Campus. Closing date for Applications: 06 November.

Equal Opportunities Employer

As an Equal Opportunities employer, we actively encourage and welcome people with various disabilities to apply. Vodacom is committed to an organisational culture that recognises, appreciates, and values diversity & inclusion. The company's approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process.