THE ROLE PURPOSE
- The Operations & Maintenance Team Lead is accountable for the stability, availability and security of the core platform and all it’s integrations. This role combines strategic leadership with hands-on technical expertise, owning the OPEX budget, driving the 1-5-10 operational mandate and building a Center of Excellence that standardizes operational practices across the region.
- Working closely with delivery teams, vendors and integration partners, the Senior Manager ensures operational readiness for all production deployments, leads transformation from reactive to automated code-driven operations and balances change velocity with platform stability in a high-demand environment. The key driver for this role is to achieve world-class operational excellence through strategic direction-setting, building organizational capability and maintaining ultimate accountability for service delivery across technical operations staff managing multiple systems in the domain and across the region.
the KEY responsibilities
Strategic Operations & Reliability Excellence
High-Velocity Incident Management (The 1-5-10 Mandate)
- Establish strategic vision and framework for achieving "1-5-10" operational mandate across all DFS Technical Operations teams as a core KPI with implementation targets by Q4 2026
- Define success metrics, monitoring frameworks and reporting mechanisms; ensure managers execute comprehensive strategies for rapid detection (1 minute), investigation (5 minutes) and remediation (10 minutes)
- Provide hands-on technical leadership during critical incidents with significant business impact or complexity requiring senior-level coordination
SRE & Automation Transformation
- Drive strategic transformation from reactive, manual operations to proactive, automated, code-driven practices across the core platform and integrations
- Champion investment in self-healing infrastructure and intelligent automation; set technical direction for automation priorities balancing quick wins with long-term goals
- Allocate OPEX budget strategically; personally assess and approve high-impact automation solutions before production deployment
- Platform Stability & Availability Leadership
- Own ultimate accountability for world-class availability, performance and security of the core platform and integrations across a regional footprint
- Balance change velocity with operational stability; establish platform-wide observability standards and step into critical technical decisions during major incidents
SERVICE MANAGEMENT & GOVERNANCE
Service Lifecycle Strategy & Oversight
- Define strategic approach to Service Management across Incident, Problem, Change and technical debt elimination; establish platform-wide SLA/OLA frameworks
- Review major incident trends driving strategic interventions; set standard for blameless post-mortem culture and approve changes to service management processes
Operational & Production Deployment Readiness
- Own strategic framework for operational readiness; establish and evolve operational acceptance criteria, certification standards and production/go-live processes
- Provide final approval for high-risk deployments; enforce pre-production validation standards and drive accountability with delivery teams for operability
Change Advisory & Enterprise Risk Management
- Provide senior advisory input and final approval for all changes; assess enterprise-level change risk particularly for cross-platform impacts
- Coordinate change planning with peer Senior Managers (Configurations, Delivery) to prevent conflicts; set change policies and approve change windows
- Review and approve root cause analysis for failed changes and major change-related incidents
Stakeholder Engagement
- Conduct regular briefings on platform health, risk landscape and operational performance; consolidate technical feedback highlighting risks, opportunities and strategic recommendations
- Represent Technical Operations in executive forums; manage stakeholder expectations during major incidents; build relationships with business unit heads
Technical Asset & Lifecycle Management
- Establish enterprise-wide standards for asset inventory, lifecycle management and technical currency; oversee strategic planning for platform refreshes and upgrades
- Ensure 100% adherence to regional financial regulations, data residency laws and security standards; own compliance strategy and audit relationships
- Define BC/DR strategic approach aligned with Group policies; oversee BC/DR testing programs and approve frameworks, RTOs and RPOs for critical services
Vendor & Integration Partner Leadership
- Own strategic vendor relationships for the DFS space; conduct vendor service reviews addressing performance issues and driving value optimization
- Lead strategic discussions on vendor dependency reduction and build-vs-buy decisions; approve contracts, renewals and commercial terms
- Define strategic approach to integration partner management; review partner performance trends and support resolution of high-impact partner issues
Financial Management & Cost Optimization
- Develop, manage and optimize complete OPEX budget for Technical Operations; lead annual budget planning and track monthly performance with variance explanations
- Identify strategic cost optimization opportunities through operational efficiency, automation and vendor rationalization; conduct value-for-money assessments
- Challenge operational cost structures driving OPEX reduction while maintaining service quality; provide regular financial reporting to executive leadership
Center of Excellence & Standardization
- Build and lead Technical Operations CoE as a key strategic pillar and KPI; drive standardization of operational procedures, tooling, monitoring frameworks and runbooks across subsidiaries
- Create micro-level service management capabilities aligning with Group IT service management; measure and report on CoE maturity progress
- Ensure operational consistency as the domain platforms & systems roll out to new subsidiaries; establish operational readiness frameworks for new launches; facilitate knowledge sharing across geographies
Cross-Functional Leadership & Collaboration
- Maintain tight collaboration with DFS Configurations and Delivery leadership ensuring seamless build-to-run handoffs; coordinate deployment planning and risk assessment
- Jointly assess operational readiness providing unified recommendations; engage business stakeholders on service disruptions and maintenance windows
- Define organizational structure, roles and operating model for Technical Operations; establish RACI matrices and accountability frameworks
People Leadership & Organizational Development
- Lead and mentor two direct report Managers (Core Platform and Integrations); set clear expectations, KPIs and strategic objectives; conduct performance reviews and succession planning
- Set cultural tone establishing norms around collaboration, accountability, operational excellence and continuous learning aligned with Group culture
- Drive talent strategy including attraction, retention, development; establish career pathways; ensure strategic priorities cascade throughout all levels
Continuous Improvement & Innovation
- Drive continuous improvement mindset; champion innovation initiatives improving operational efficiency and reducing toil
- Identify and sponsor proof-of-concept projects for emerging technologies; allocate budget balancing current operations with future capability development.
Qualifications
EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS
- Technical Operations Leadership: Minimum 8-10 years of progressive experience in technical operations, production support or site reliability engineering with at least 3-5 years in leadership roles managing teams in mission-critical 24/7 environments.
- Financial Services/Mobile Money Platform Operations: Minimum 5-7 years operating financial services platforms, core banking systems, payment processing or mobile money platforms with proven track record maintaining high availability and managing operations in regulated environments with compliance requirements.
- Multi-Country Operations Management: Demonstrated experience managing technical operations across multiple locations, countries or business units, navigating diverse regulatory or operational requirements and supporting expansion initiatives or multi-site coordination (experience can include project-based multi-country exposure).
- Change Leadership: Proven track record leading operational improvements such as automation initiatives, process standardization, SRE practices adoption or service management framework implementation while maintaining service delivery and managing stakeholder expectations.
- Vendor & Partner Ecosystem Management: Strong experience managing relationships with application vendors, integration partners or third-party service providers, including vendor performance management, multi-party incident coordination, escalation management and driving service improvements across external dependencies.
- Cross-Functional Leadership: Demonstrated ability collaborating with peer leaders across delivery, infrastructure, security and business units, influencing outcomes through relationship management, coordinating cross-functional initiatives and establishing working agreements with teams outside direct control.
- Budget & Cost Management: Experience managing operational budgets, contributing to budget planning processes, tracking expenditures, identifying cost optimization opportunities and participating in vendor negotiations or commercial discussions.
- Incident & Crisis Management at Scale: Extensive hands-on experience leading major incident response for business-critical systems, coordinating response across multiple teams and vendors, managing stakeholder communication during critical outages and implementing systematic improvements from post-incident reviews.
ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS
- University degree in Information Technology, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
- Relevant professional certifications such as ITIL Foundation or higher, AWS/Azure/GCP certifications or equivalent demonstrating operational and technical expertise
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