Senior Specialist - Digital Platforms.Technology Information

Mission/ Core purpose of the Job
The Digital Platform Tech Lead is a senior Technical lead who is responsible for a set of Digital Online Platforms. This role owns the architectural and design decisions for the team / squad. The Senior Tech Lead (STL) is an executor and the visionary force behind the technical solution. The TL values simplicity and is unafraid to challenge technical constraints and procedures to achieve an Agile design. The STL works closely with all team members to create a modular, scalable solution that addresses/incorporates future architectural changes and designs. The STL will drive the teams engineering practices in test driven development, continuous integration, and automated deployment. The STL is a hands-on team member who actively coaches the team to solve complex problems. MTN digital services have become an increasingly crucial revenue generator for MTN South Africa. The purpose of this business unit (BU) is to develop platforms that will expose and leverage existing connectivity, to foster an ecosystem that will help drive local innovation. In pursuit of a vision to lead the delivery of a bold, new digital world to its customers, and a mission to make its customers' lives a whole lot brighter, MTN digital services would like to drive the short and long-term expansion of the business unit, through focus on key areas, servicing and support the business unit, from a technical arm.

MTN South Africa (MTN SA) is looking to appoint a suitably qualified candidate, with technical skills in digital strategy formulation, digital engagement / channel management, multi-media content curation and to deliver technical integration, business process re-engineering and operational management improvements.
The appointed Senior Technical Lead, will play the role of a strategic digital IT support for the Digital Services Business Unit, to help them define and deliver programmes and. These will be achieved through information customer insight, industry focus and business transformation experience.
There is a large focus area for creating, maintaining, and operating new Digital platforms and technologies which bring products and services to customers in the most efficient manner. The ITD Digital Solutions team, inclusive of the Digital Senior Technical Lead, will help to bring about this vision.

Context (Global influences, environmental / industry demands, organisational mission etc.)
Organisational Mission
MTN is evolving from a mobile communications provider to a digital platform operator where innovation, operational and commercial excellence is critical for success. To excel today and sustain future growth, MTN must develop the required capabilities internally to provide the market and customers with EPIC experiences, products and services which fulfil the belief that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.
To this extent the Digital Products and Services team are responsible for creating and operating digital platforms which bring our products and services to customers in the easiest and most seamless manner in the form of contextualised and personalised experiences available anywhere and anytime.
The Digital Products and Services team are helping to bring about a transformational journey to infuse new capabilities, combining customer experience, data and digital technologies to MTN’s core connectivity business, emerging fintech and rich media offerings in order to digitise processes and innovate customer engagement.

Global Influences / Environmental & Industry Demands
•Highly dynamic and fluctuating Telecommunications industry
•Highly competitive market with new and established competitors
•Fast moving industry
•Legislative changes
•Rapid pace of digitalization
•Prevailing economic pressures affecting staff and customers
•Fluid complexities of customer expectations and demands Mission/ Core purpose of the Job Working closely with the MTN Executive Leadership Team and the Opco CEOs, the Executive: 1.

Key Performance Areas: Core, essential responsibilities / outputs of the position (KPA's)
Functional Leadership
•Responsible for the overall technological design authority of the Digital Platforms with the help of the team/squad
•Guide project teams on technology strategy related to coding practices, continuous integration and automated deployment
•Responsible for the technical design of the platform
•Be hands on and engage in coding to help the team to develop the solution and solve all surfacing problems at hand Identifies and removes technical impediments
•Constantly look for better ways of solving technical problems and designing the solution, not afraid of challenging the status quo
•Provide the team a roadmap for implementing software engineering practices for higher code quality
•Share responsibility with other Technical leads for building reusable and scalable components
•Ensure that Customer and project issues are identified timeously, documented, resolved, and communicated.

•Knowledge sharing with other team members:
o Knowledge sharing is key to the success of the Digital team and helps with the growth of all individuals and must always take place.
o Knowledge hoarding of any kind is discouraged, and one must strive to openly share knowledge in a centralised and easily accessible fashion.
o One must constantly engage fellow team members in whiteboard sessions (not only in the confines of a project but to hand over any interesting knowledge that has been gained).
o Ensure Central Storage of Knowledge with easy methods to access and update.

•Collate budgetary input in an area thereby assisting Line Management and Senior Senior Technical Leads to track requirements and spend on systems.
•Assist from time-to-time for negotiation of domain related contractual agreements with Vendors.
•Driving the capture and updating of Project Info and Priorities.

Key Customer Relationship Management:
o The Business always needs help to understand system capabilities and how these can help drive their various initiatives and product Roadmaps.
o One needs to freely offer up this type of knowledge day to day interactions with Business.
o This must be done by ensuring that Business is part of Sprint Planning/Review sessions, or weekly/regular meetings.

Knowledge Mentoring:
o Work with fellow team members to logically structure a knowledge base.
o Commit to being multifaceted in one’s skill set and continually demonstrate the usefulness thereof.
o Demonstrate a passion around the planning function and always innovate.
o Encourage knowledge sharing and set-up sharing sessions.
o Actively pass on knowledge that has been gained.
o Must motivate others and strive for a deep understanding Portal and Digital Services platforms and pass on knowledge.

•Build professionalism, loyalty, and commitment to the organization;
•Communicate actively and effectively;
•Maintain good Employee relations and enhance collaborative teamwork;
•Develop strong relationships with all Service Delivery Team members, Internal MTN Clients, external partners, and Vendors.

Strategic input
•Assist in providing input to the Digital Channels and Services strategy, including the MTN SA Omni-channel digital strategy
•Assist in Identifying key changes to digital systems in the future from technological, commercial, business and consumer behaviour perspectives
•Work collaboratively with other Digital Technical and Senior Technical Lead/s supporting ITD systems, Senior Management upto General Manager and MTN group, to identify key changes to Digital systems from a technological, commercial, business and consumer behavior perspectives, as part of end-to-end project delivery.

Collaboration
•Work closely with Tech Leads and developers of various teams to assess existing problems and to come up with process improvement solutions
•Detect upcoming bottlenecks and production issues proactively and consult teams hands-on towards improved technical solutions.
•Thought partner with the other technical leads in story creation and acceptance criteria, and communicate tradeoffs effectively with Designers
•Liaise with Business and Programme Managers, regarding product development, timelines, and any issues, with respect to Digital systems capabilities and requirements;
•Consolidate requirements for Digital systems and decide on clear development paths while managing what may be opposing views from different stakeholders;
•Work with key stakeholders to build on and communicate the understanding of existing and emerging Digital systems technologies and capabilities across the business;
•Provide MTN Group with subject matter expertise related to Digital systems as and when called upon.

Planning & Delivery
•Experience working directly for or with digital platforms and vendors in the service delivery space as well as mobile advertising in a telecommunications environment will be advantageous. The Digital tech lead will be expected to (included but not limited to):
o Understanding the telecommunications Enterprise Architecture Framework in MTN and how the digital ecosystem and landscapes envelope and interact with each other;
o Have a broad, system-level understanding of mobile network infrastructure;
o API and microservices understanding and a strategy to replace legacy interfaces with the cloud-based strategy;
o Have passion and enthusiasm for the mobile industry and have an in interest in digital services as a future of telecommunications as well as ensuring that there is a good customer experience (living the customer experience);
•Provide input into the development of the roadmap for Digital systems to:
•Ensure these plans are aligned with business requirements and budgetary prioritization.
•Ensure Digital system designs are developed to achieve these plans.
•Ensure planned Digital projects are delivered on time and communicated timeously when any deviation is found from a delivery perspective;
•Assist with understanding utilization of Digital systems infrastructure, scalability and capabilities on both Virtual (on-prem) and cloud platforms;
•Ensure Digital systems meet business requirements and are sufficient scaled for anticipated/ forecasted customer growth, especially during peak season such as Easter and December;
•Provide review and input to the detailed Digital Architecture high-level design, ensuring that impact and expectations on existing systems and processes are managed;
•Ensure knowledge transfer is maintained for new or enhanced capabilities, especially for the relevant support documentation and escalation processes that needs to be shared with the operations team, thereby minimizing downtime and queries, by ensuring that escalations and basic troubleshooting are correctly done;
•Review and input to business requirements that are defined for each new project/ enhancement to existing products and services;
•Monitor performance of vendor deliverables, investigate any performance and functionality issues, and ensure future designs are optimized to prevent issues found, by working with the relevant Solution Architects, business, and platform vendor teams;
•Continually identify the following in respective areas:
o Capacity Upgrades that are required due to Network Traffic;
o Software Upgrades required to ensure adherence to maintenance agreements;
o Monitoring SLA’s for Security Vulnerability remediation on periodic scans, to prevent breach and threats to MTN SA.
o Ensure POPI compliance on all systems that contain sensitive customer information.
o Aspects of a system or systems, that have not been performing optimally that require changes to architecture or modernization of Architecture and supporting Api components, in line with best practices and governed periodically by Group Mandates;
o Any physical hardware that is reaching end of life and requires replacement and/ or;
o Monitoring increase in VM resources as dictated by performance optimization or increase in traffic and/ or;
o Monitoring cost benchmarking and optimization of cloud-based deployments, using MTN’s own cloud infrastructure and linked to OPEX budget management.
•In the Digital space, “Planning” and “Operational” areas need to function as a cohesive unit. This means that ‘working’ relationships with Operational area units must include:
o Discussing status of new/current projects;
o Discussing system issues that may or may not require planning analysis;
o Ensuring that Operations is involved in a project every step of the way, such that they can prepare for ATP/UAT- work and any roll-out activities;
o Provide Operations the opportunity to provide ideas on system evolution from the perspective of maintaining platforms on a day-to-day basis;
o Perform ATPs with Operations and vendors; and
o Help test system functioning through the application of custom scripts;
o Ensure periodic availability to help guide or support operational teams based on subject matter expertise and knowledge.

Stakeholders
Interface with internal and external industry experts to anticipate customer needs and facilitate solutions development.
•Collaborate across functional teams within the Broader MTN SA team to enable the development of solutions necessary to drive the desired business outcomes for customers.
•Survey developers and technical members of the organization to understand their main pain points in the coding and development process
•One of the primary objectives is to ensure the team delivers on requirements set by the business and make sure that changes needed on platforms owned, take place on time and within budget. In addition, all requirements defined must be of a high quality and the deliverable provided by the vendor is tested thoroughly, such that defects are kept to a minimum to ensure smooth testing cycles.
•Ensure that all systems (or set of systems) are properly documented for Operations by the Vendor/s; and that System/Project handovers are done to Operational areas.
•Partake in ATPs (Acceptance Test Procedures) together with vendors and assist with automation of any ATP procedures. In addition, ensure that all systems (or set of systems) are properly documented for Operations by the vendor and that they are handed over.

Governance and Risk Management
•Ensure compliance of all digital systems with all regulatory, commercial and business requirements (e.g. Security and integrity of banking systems)
•Develop and manage the implementation of functional policies, standard operating procedures and best practices that ensure operational efficiency, accuracy, security, integrity and compliance with relevant laws and regulations.
•Manage partners and ensure all contracts are managed in line with procurement policies and standards, in order to drive compliance to set processes and procedures.
•Ensure system documentation is sufficiently detailed and up to date to ensure business continuity and prevent over-reliance on a few individuals

People Leadership and Organisational Capability Building
•Hold indirect reports accountable for the achievement of business plans and take corrective actions where necessary to ensure achievement of business objectives.
•Instil the Cloud engineering domain knowledge within the technical support team.
•Coach and mentor junior team members
•Act as an ambassador and role model for the Technology by living the brand values and vital behaviours.
•Make environment the best place to work.
•Improve the employee engagement through the GCA/Sentimeter.
•Participate in the attraction, development and retention of Planning and Engineering talent.
•Assist in ensuring a culture of continuous evaluation and improvement.
•Drive a culture of high performance, accountability and consequence management.

Financial Management
•Building and maintaining vendor relations, to ensure that purchase orders and invoices are aligned and provided on time.
•Quarterly and monthly reporting analysis:
o Be part of regular vendor meetings;
o Convey problem areas to vendors and request action plans;
o Ensuring that vendors supply quarterly reports on system health and utilization and any other items as per contract; and
o Ensuring that assistance is provided to obtain maximum value for minimum cost from vendors.

Budget Requirements
o Assist in tracking financial information such as:
▪Breakdown of spend (tangible and intangible software, licenses, and hardware);
▪Project costs; and
▪Requisition, PO, and Invoice numbers.
o All funding must be capitalized within the targets set by MTN.
•Assistance with input on Yearly CAPEX Plans and tracking spend through the year to:
o Ensure that team members are working together to ensure that spend is kept track of.
o Must work with Line Management and Senior Digital Senior Technical Lead/s to:
▪Tally up all spend and budget positions on a regular basis;
▪Extract all Roadmap-items from team members and supply full budget requirement breakdowns each year; and
▪Ensure that capitalisation targets are achieved as part of KPI’s.

Project Management
Develop and drive the execution of agreed projects;
•Drive the implementation, tracking, monitoring and compliance of Projects;
•Capturing of time spent against projects in terms of estimated and actual efforts;
•Co-ordinate project reporting;

Risk management.
Skill Tracking and Self Learning
•The following general skills are required at minimum and included but not limited to:
o Administrative and IT;
o Learning on the job;
o Working in a diverse team under agile and dynamic environments;
•The Digital Senior Technical Lead shall demonstrate an effort to develop their own skills which helps their career by:
o Making sure that they are going on as many courses a year and are reviewing their development with Line Management; and
o That they are making use of any online training that the Company offers.
•Demonstrating “self-motivation” by getting "on the job" skills which don't always require course work.
•The Digital Senior Technical Lead shall keep track of:
o Courses that have been completed;
o Development areas that need focus;
o Skills which have been “self-taught”

Job Requirements (Education, Experience and Competencies)
Education:
•4+ year, MSc or PhD degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or related quantitative field.

Experience:
•Minimum of 5-8 years’ experience in area of specialisation
•Experience in Continuous Integration/Delivery
•Proficient in development languages
•Proficient in Mobile Application development
•Experience working in a medium to large organization
•Seasoned developer or technical lead with deep insight into newest technologies and trends, Java/JVM, and nice to have experience with functional programming (Scala)
•Experience in developing and scaling high-quality eCommerce tech platforms in cross-functional product teams
•Experience in Agile Development, with specific Solution Architect (or similar) experience preferred
•Experience managing technical priorities within the Backlog
•Experience working directly for or with digital platforms and vendors in the service delivery space as well as mobile advertising in a telecommunication environment;
•VAS and Digital systems experience/ interaction;
•Solid understanding of networking and IP;
•OSI layer understanding and drawing parallels to current applications;
•Systems analysis and design;
•Virtualization and cloud experience are advantageous but not essential – on the job training will be available;
•At least 2+ years programming and analytics experience in the BI environment;
•At least 2 years of leadership experience;
•Good understanding of all aspects of BI and Information Management processes;
•Project management and business optimisation experience would be advantageous;
•Exposure to managing external vendor/supplier relationships and service level agreements;
•Track record of self-development and improvement

Technical Skills:
•Seen as an expert within the technical components of the applications / domains / products / journeys
•Can make architecture decisions at a team, application and product level
•Deep tech knowledge around platform architecture, frontend and backend frameworks and cloud; experience in coaching teams
•Understands relationship with Product Owner, Scrum Master, Design Lead and rest of technical team
•Strong communication skills with ability to align the organization on complex technical decisions
•Active coach and mentor whose goals are to grow and maximize the team’s potential
•High energy and passionate individual who inspires teammates to reach their maximum potential
•Excited about trying new solutions outside standard approved
•Embraces a culture of trust, free thought complete transparency
•Brave and rebellious, willing to challenge status quo
•Strong communication skills with ability to communicate complex technical concepts and align organization on decisions
•Sound problem-solving skills with the ability to quickly process complex information and present it clearly and simply
•Utilizes team collaboration to create innovative solutions efficiently
•Basic scripting skills in any/ all the following: -- Perl, Python, SQL, Linux/Unix Shells, Office 365;
•Good database skills (SQL in particular) – Oracle preferable, but others such as MySQL are fine;
•Unix Scripting;
•Good document writing skills with the ability to map out user stories, used cases in a detailed, yet clear and concise manner in the context of doing Systems Analysis and design;
•Good record keeping skills with the ability to clearly map out System Procedures in a detailed, yet clear and concise manner;
•Advantageous – Understanding of SS7, SIGTRAN, SIP;
•Some working knowledge of hardware and concepts such as EOL, EOS;
•Advanced Analytics and working with Big Data;
•Data Visualisation (tools such as Power BI, Tableau etc.);
•Data Science (Machine Learning Models)

Behavioural qualities:
•Presence and conviction to set objectives and drive the achievement;
•Influential;
•Resilience;
•Innovative;
•Decisive;
•Action-oriented;
•Customer centricity;
•Diplomacy and tact;
•Assertive;
•Relationship builder – strong people focus;
•Comfortable working with abstracts and concepts;
•Operate with integrity;
•Pressure tolerance;
•Focused and priority driven;
•Attention to detail;
•Risk aversion;
•Consultative;
•Self-starter;
•Innovative;
•Flexible and adaptable;
•Perseverance;

Competencies:
Head - Big Picture Focus (20)
•Conceptual Thinker - Executes tactical plans to achieve strategic requirements.
•Problem Solver - Has the mental agility to identify and solve relevant business challenges.
•Improvement Driver - Executes and identifies opportunities for commercial innovation and continuous improvement.

Heart – Emotionally Intelligent (30)
•Culture and Change Champion - Role models practices by living the MTN values and vital behaviours for others to follow.
•Supportive People Manager - Is self-aware and supports team capability development through opportunity creation for realising potential.
•Relationship Manager - Builds professional networks across teams through collaboration and co-operation.

Hands – Results Focused (40)
•Results Achiever - Produces sustainable business results.
•Operationally Astute - Sets priorities, plans, organises and co-ordinates the work of others.

Others:
•Adaptability
•Analytical
•Complex Reasoning
•Cooperativeness
•Creativity
•Customer Centricity
•Intellectual Curiosity
•Open Communication
•Optimism
•Realistic Thinking
•Reflective
•Risk Taking
•Sense of Purpose
•
Socioemotional Intelligence
 

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At MTN, we believe that understanding our people’s needs and aspirations is key to creating experiences that delight you at work, everyday. We are committed to fostering an environment where every member of our Y’ello Family is heard, understood and empowered to live an inspired life.

Our values keep us grounded and moving in the right direction. Most importantly, they keep us honest. It is not something we claim to be. It is in our DNA.

As an organisation, we consider it our mission to create an exciting and rewarding place to work, where our people can be themselves, thrive in positivity and ignite their full potential. A workplace that boosts creativity and innovation, improves productivity, and ultimately drives meaningful results. A workplace that is built on relationships and achieving a purpose that is bigger than us. This is what we want you to experience with us!

Our commitments go beyond an organisational promise. It is in our leadership and managerial ethos to meaningfully partner with our employees, customers and stakeholders with a vision to realise our shared goals.

We are delighted that you are considering us as your career partner to make a mark in the world. We look forward to your application!