Platform Operations Lead (AWS / Kubernetes / DevOps) (Johannesburg Hybrid)

ENVIRONMENT:

Our client develops next-generation banking technology that enables financial institutions to launch innovative, compliant digital products faster and more reliably. Their core offering is a white-labelled, cashflow-based business lending platform that enables banks to provide pre-approved, variable-repayment loans to SMEs through digital origination and real-time loan management. They are seeking a Platform Operations Lead to build, automate and manage the infrastructure and support capabilities underpinning their platform across multiple client environments. This hands-on technical leadership role covers cloud and container platforms, deployment automation, observability, operational reliability, incident response and technical support.

DUTIES:

• Build and maintain secure, repeatable AWS infrastructure across the core platform and independently deployed client environments.

• Manage Kubernetes-based environments, including OpenShift and K3s, together with networking, ingress and supporting platform services.

• Develop and maintain reusable CI/CD pipelines, Helm charts, deployment configurations and Argo CD workflows.

• Establish consistent release practices across development, QA, UAT and production environments.

• Apply software development governance standards to significant infrastructure, deployment and platform changes.

• Review application and platform changes for deployability, observability, security, recovery and support impact.

• Ensure production changes include appropriate validation, rollback and recovery plans.

• Maintain traceable technical evidence for platform changes, including requirements, approvals, test results, rollback considerations and release notes.

• Maintain current architecture, deployment, environment and operational documentation.

• Work with Engineering to ensure applications are deployable, observable and operationally supportable.

• Automate repetitive infrastructure, deployment, environment-management and support activities.

• Implement and maintain production monitoring, logging, health checks, alerting and operational dashboards.

• Lead the investigation and resolution of infrastructure, deployment and platform-related incidents.

• Establish support runbooks, incident procedures, escalation paths and handover practices.

• Ensure incidents are properly triaged before being escalated to Engineering.

• Build and mature the Platform Operations and Technical Support function as the international client base grows.

• Mentor DevOps Support and Application/Production Support Engineers.

• Participate in production support and on-call activities.

• Support secure client deployments and controlled upgrades across independently managed banking environments.

• Support SOC 2 compliance activities through Vanta, including control maintenance, evidence collection, remediation tracking and audit preparation.

• Collaborate with the Head of Technology, Technical Architect and Engineering team to establish common infrastructure, deployment, security and operational standards.

REQUIREMENTS:

• Relevant degree, diploma or equivalent practical experience.

• Strong hands-on experience operating production workloads on AWS or a comparable public cloud platform.

• Practical experience with Docker and containerised environments.

• Production experience with Kubernetes.

• Exposure to OpenShift and K3s would be advantageous.

• Experience developing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation and GitOps workflows.

• Experience with infrastructure automation and configuration-management practices.

• Strong Linux, networking, DNS, TLS certificate, reverse proxy, ingress and application-connectivity knowledge.

• Experience with monitoring, logging, alerting, troubleshooting and incident response.

• Experience supporting security controls, vulnerability remediation and compliance evidence would be advantageous.

• Experience supporting regulated banking or financial services environments is strongly preferred.

• Experience mentoring or leading Platform Operations, DevOps or Technical Support teams would be beneficial.

ATTRIBUTES:

• Strong collaborator who works effectively with developers, architects and technical leadership.

• Automation-first and improvement-focused mindset.

• Excellent troubleshooting ability across infrastructure, networking, containers and deployment pipelines.

• Sound technical judgement when balancing reliability, security, operational risk and delivery requirements.

• Able to explain the purpose, impact, risk and recovery approach associated with platform changes.

• Calm, structured and communicative during incidents.

• Comfortable working with ambiguity and evolving requirements.

• Strong mentoring and technical leadership capabilities.

• Accountable for reliability, security, confidentiality and support quality.

• Understands the distinction between platform operations, technical support and application development.

• Uses AI-assisted engineering tools responsibly within approved security and governance controls while remaining accountable for validating and documenting all resulting changes.