Senior Manager, Application Development Maintenance and Support at Standard Bank Group

Job Purpose

To facilitate the successful delivery and management of business solutions and features by mapping out, coordinating, and overseeing the design, development, and execution of the database, information systems and software applications in country. To lead and guide the team to perform maintenance, support, and upgrading of existing hardware and applications in support of business objectives

Key Responsibilities/Accountabilities

• Strategy
  • Obtain a thorough understanding of the business strategy and translate it into deliverables for the Application Development, Maintenance and Support team in Country
  • Participate in and stimulate dialogue on broadening the scope of interaction with customers by identifying ecosystem partners and or FinTech products with the intent of incorporating products, data or specific processes in the value proposition to customers in country
  • Account for architectural design principles related to reusable services, common technology underpinnings, and strategic technical capabilities being maintained
  • Review and evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of existing applications and develop strategies for improving or leveraging these systems and research and make recommendations on the technical evolution of the application platform and software products and services in support of procurement and development efforts in country, aligned to Group Technology standards
  • Analyse the existing applications and software products and services to ensure execution and alignment with Group technology strategy, considering IOC principles
• Technology & Architecture
  • Guide and manage the team in the development deployment and support of new applications, systems software, enhancements and upgrades to existing applications in support of business needs in country
  • Oversee and account for the IT management activities and manage delivery of the country business solution portfolio and platforms, including operational management to ensure capacity, resources and design and delivery of the product solution by managing and planning delivery
  • Develop and maintain strong working relationships with key customers at all levels to understand their business drivers and work with the systems analyst to understand requirements and deliver/promote technical solutions as appropriate
  • Manage changes in the environment by ensuring federated testing is executed end to end and implemented in partnership with the Production services team
  • Plan, organise, deliver and maintain business solutions and features for the country, in line with execution and delivery of technology and business strategy
  • Give input to the design and development of test plans (e.g. test objectives, test cases, test data, test scripts) for executing unit, integration, system or acceptance testing to ensure the solution meets the business requirements
  • Mature the Software Engineering practices within Programme by driving System Team capabilities (Change, Automation, Integration) and priorities on the programme backlog
  • Implement and mature the set of methods, practices, standards, guidelines and frameworks that are required to continually improve the quality of technical solutions that are delivered within the Country
  • Provide technical expertise in the development of new and existing applications and assess the requirements of new workflows, and liaise with suppliers on issues pertaining to routine and ad-hoc maintenance, technical support and development
  • Investigate complex problem situations and apply workaround and/or recommend solutions to resolve problems in support of business requirements
  • Understand and translate business operational process needs into improvement specifications for all systems or new application development, ensuring that interfaces with other applications and third party products work
  • Manage application configuration and upgrades, and problem analysis and resolution for complex application problems, in conjunction with the users and external application or service suppliers where necessary
  • Address user experience (UX) and technical debt, and respond to industry developments (e.g. new versions of devices, operating systems / design paradigms) to support the Customer Services/Feature teams in achieving business needs, ensuring that technical debt levels are always kept under control and that re-factoring / remediation / simplification takes places on a regular basis
• Financial Management
  • Perform monthly tracking of volumes and cost drivers against budgeted volumes and cost drivers for application development, maintenance and support in country
  • Manage technical debt, rework rates and overall engineering quality and costs, accounting for expenditure and resources remaining within project tolerance.
  • Account for application development, maintenance and support budgets and ensure that expenditure and resources are tracked and remain within project tolerance and escalate issues timeously to prevent over expenditure on budget
• People
  • Monitor the team and provide guidance and coaching so that all level 2 and 3 incidents are closed out within the allocated timelines, ensuring that service level agreements are adhered to.
  • Guide the accurate and detailed documentation of system changes and provide upskilling to the service desk function prior to handover to ensure seamless service support to end users
  • Develop a high performing team by embedding the banks performance process, providing regular performance feedback and coaching and motivating staff in the application development, maintenance and support team to excel
  • Afford technical subject matter expertise in the technical domain by providing solutions and advice to business across multiple problem sets, working with vendors to improve technical domain solutions as well as providing support to the team
• Risk, Regulatory, Prudential & Compliance
  • Drive and champion a positive risk culture and attitude within the Application Development, Maintenance and support function, establishing appropriate risk oversight and governance processes and structures.
  • Observe sound risk management practices and oversee the implementation of Group Technology minimum standards with regards to application development and maintenance in the Application Development, Maintenance and support team
  • Manage the integrity, and changes to the application development servers and databases and develop data integrity and implement security standards for the systems, co-coordinating requests for access within agreed parameters ensuring data quality
  • Monitor projects throughout all phases to ensure compliance to design standards, and to ensure that the design solution matches the business requirements, alerting project and country technology leadership when there are potential disconnects
  • Consult with solution project teams to develop a solution design which is compliant with the architecture and standards of Group Technology, maintaining alignment to the architectural plan and roadmap, in line with Group and country enterprise reference architectures and roadmaps
• Client
  • Direct the development, implementation and maintenance of business features and solutions for the business lines by agreeing the strategic themes, epics and programmes with the business stakeholders, ensuring the required capacity is available for the delivery requirements
  • Oversee and guide the delivery of high quality level 2 and 3 service level support in collaboration with the service desk and liaise with 3rd parties to ensure the prompt resolution of all requests in line with the Service/Operational Level Agreements
  • Lead and give guidance to 3rd party suppliers and vendors in configuration, development and testing of changes, and team members in requirements definition and implementation with regards to the relevant technology domain
  • Perform monthly service reviews of vendors and 3rd party suppliers to monitor that the service and support provided is within agreed service levels
  • Contribute to the development and maintenance of standards related to Application Development, Maintenance and Support, and country alignment and compliance to these standards, enabling achievement of service levels
  • Collaborate with suppliers and customers to ensure that existing applications are optimised to meet business needs and implement new applications or enhancements within existing applications where relevant
  • Partner with business stakeholders to understand business strategies and to enable end to end delivery and availability of IT Services to support the specific solution in country to fulfil the Country strategic plan
• Data
  • Develop and maintain business impact assessment reports for each application which delivers the specific business services; understanding the critical systems; impact of failure on business and potential operational losses
  • Monitor and report on progress for changes of approach and recommend solutions for successful implementation

Preferred Qualification and Experience

• First Degree in Information Technology
• Total number of years’ experience: 10 years
• Proven experience in analysing complex business problems and needs involving multiple applications, platforms and database interactions and recommend technology solutions. In-depth understanding of IT Infrastructure including cloud and development integration
• Extensive experience in engaging with business, technology partners and external providers in providing 2nd level support
• Proven experience in Infrastructure / Technical, support, Systems Administration, Applications support, Electronic Banking/Channels Support, Programming, Database Administration, Systems Analysis