Platform Operations Lead (AWS / Kubernetes / DevOps) (Johannesburg Hybrid) - Datafin IT Recruitment

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.