Senior Operations Engineer

Sabenza IT & Recruitment; Pretoria; Hybrid; ZAR 800,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Sabenza IT & Recruitment in Pretoria, South Africa seeks a Senior Operations Engineer to keep complex environments running smoothly and to fix challenging production issues. You will partner with development, infrastructure, security and product teams to ensure applications are built correctly and designed to run reliably in production.

The role emphasizes automation, cloud platforms, IaC and strong incident resolution skills in a fast-paced global team.

Qualifications

• 6–10 years IT experience, 3–5 years in IT operations/operations management.
• ITIL Foundation and Service Transition or equivalent.
• Flexible working of 1960 hours in a 12-month period.
• Remote / On-site work location flexibility.
• Modern, state-of-the-art offices.
• Dynamic Global Team collaboration.
• Agile Working Model Methodology.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with development, infrastructure, security, and product teams to ensure applications are designed to run reliably in production.
• Maintain and improve complex production environments and automation.
• Troubleshoot incidents and perform root-cause analysis for production issues.
• Implement monitoring, logging, and observability to prevent incidents and optimize performance.

Skills

Ansible

Puppet

Chef

Salt

Python

Bash

PowerShell

Jenkins

GitLab CI

GitHub Actions

Terraform

CloudFormation

Prometheus

Grafana

ELK

AWS

Azure

Release management

Troubleshooting

Stakeholder communication

ITIL

Education

ITIL Foundation

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Pretoria, South Africa | Posted on 07/09/2026

We’re looking for a Senior Operations Engineer who knows how to keep complex technology environments running smoothly, and who enjoys solving the problems that make everyone else say, "Okay... who can fix this?"

You’ll be part of a global IT environment working with modern cloud technologies, automation, DevOps and infrastructure platforms. Your mission will be simple:

You’ll work closely with development, infrastructure, security and product teams to make sure applications are not only built correctly, but are also designed to run reliably in production.

Requirements

ESSENTIAL SKILLS:

• Strong expertise in configuration management tools (e.g., Ansible, Puppet, Chef, Salt).
• Proven automation skills using scripting and programming languages (e.g., Python, Bash, PowerShell).
• Deep knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and tooling (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions).
• Solid understanding of infrastructure as code (IaC) technologies (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Experience with monitoring, logging and observability platforms (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK).
• Hands‑on experience operating cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or equivalent).
• Expertise in change, release and transition management practices for IT services.
• Strong troubleshooting and root‑cause analysis skills for complex production incidents.
• Excellent stakeholder communication and leadership skills for cross‑functional teams.
• Knowledge of IT service management frameworks (ITIL) and operational governance.

ADVANTAGEOUS SKILLS:

• Experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with platform and middleware technologies (application servers, message brokers).
• Knowledge of data centre components (networking, storage, servers).
• Experience working in regulated environments (financial or automotive preferred).
• German language skills advantageous (not mandatory).
• Exposure to DevOps and SRE practices (error budgets, SLIs/SLOs).
• Experience with security and lifecycle management for infrastructure.
• Familiarity with data pipelines and ML model deployment considerations.
• Experience with automation frameworks for testing and deployment (e.g., Terratest).
• Experience setting up or operating Centres of Excellence or Communities of Practice.
• Experience in mentoring and coaching junior OPS personnel.

QUALIFICATIONS/EXPERIENCE:

• Broad IT experience, typically 6-10 years, with 3-5 years in IT operations/operations management.
• Proven experience in transition management, with relevant qualifications (ITIL Foundation and Service Transition or equivalent).
• Cutting edge global IT system landscape and processes
• Flexible working of 1960 hours in a 12-month period
• High Work-Life balance
• Remote / On-site work location flexibility
• Highly motivating, energetic, and fast‑paced working environment
• Modern, state-of-the-art offices
• Dynamic Global Team collaboration
• Application of the Agile Working Model Methodology