Application Specialist II - Brackenfell at Shoprite Group of Companies

Purpose of the Job    

• The Application Specialist’s primary responsibility is to have a specialised knowledge of the system(s) in order to troubleshoot issues, working closely with project teams; functional teams and vendors.  
• The Application Specialist should be able to coordinate testing and perform quality assurance on the data and validate the outcome of the testing.    
• Application Specialists II are expected to be an advanced technical user in several solution specific computer programs and data interfaces. 

Job Objectives    
Business Analysis

• The Application Specialist II, works with the Business Analyst to analyse requests from end users in order to advise whether custom development is required or whether the core application satisfies the request. 

Solution Support

• Analyse defects, gather the necessary evidence and report findings  with the developers, functional teams, end users and or vendors. 

Solution Design

• Creates the Change Request document in conjunction with architects, functional analyst and developers.  The architects, functional analyst and delivery lead will review and approve the change request document before submitting to the vendor for their input.  

 Solution Build

• Works with the architect, functional analsyt and developer to ensure that the build received from the vendor or Shoprite developer is according to the change that was agreed in the functional system design document. 

IT Systems Testing

• Works with the Test Lead, Test Analyst to ensure that the test plan covers all the aspects of regression testing and the new build. Informs other team’s where the change will influence integration with other systems to ensure that End to End testing is done and that it is included in the test plan.   
• Together with Delivery Lead, Test Lead, Business/Functional Analyst and Developer, validates the play-back by Test Analyst on the test results.  

 Solutions Deployment

• The Application Specialist II works with the Functional Analyst / Developer to provide input to the Charm request on Solution Manager once the Testing has been approved by all parties mentioned in the Testing section.  
• Validate the success or failure of the deployment with all necessary stakeholders influenced by the deployment.  
• Works with the Deployment Coordinator to ensure that the Change Request Management standards are adhered to. 

Incident Management

• Investigate and resolve escalated incidents from Third Line Support.    
• Disaster Recovery Management
• Participate in the Disaster Recovery Trials every 6 months

Qualifications    

• Matric  
• 3-year IT qualification  
• MS SQL fundamentals (Introduction to SQL) Certification  
• MS SQL - Querying data with Transact Certification  
• ITIL 4 Bridge Certification  
• DevOps principles (desired) 

Experience    

• 3-6 years’ experience as an Application Specialist   
• Experience in a Retail and or Financial Services industry  
• Experience in software testing 
• Experience of working on projects within the Software Development Life Cycle 
• Experience in cloud solutions – (desirable).   

Knowledge and Skills    

• IT Support and Operations knowledge  
• Good working knowledge of MS Office Suite  
• Good working knowledge of different operating systems and Internet technologies 
• IT Support and Operations knowledge  
• Working knowledge of different operating systems and Internet technologies  
• Incident management system knowledge 
• Change management experience  
• Exposure to vendor management  
• Excellent communication skills  
• Exposure to Project Management - (desirable).  
• Foundational knowledge of core programming technologies - (desirable). 
• Business presentation skills - (desirable).