Head Technical Architecture at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

• Head of Platforms and Engineering for IB Global Markets Technology, strong leadership, technical expertise, and ideally Global Markets experience required.
• Lead the agile design, deployment and ongoing optimisation and evolution of enterprise wide technology platforms including but not limited to: Virtual Platforms, Middleware Systems Technology, Mainframe, Storage and API’s. This includes: Strategic direction setting and the transitioning / modernisation of the organisation to virtualisation and containerisation, cost transparency and optimisation, self service and provisioning at the point of interaction with our customers.

Job Description

Skills and experience required:

• 15+ years technology experience
• Relevant B-Degree in Computer Science OR; equivalent level of industry certification in Technical field with minimum requirements of experience & practical application is evident
• Experience and proven track record defining enterprise wide technical strategies
• Experience in leading large and multifaceted teams
• Engineering Leadership in Financial Services
• Hands-on experience with Trading and Risk Platforms
• Deep understanding of low-latency networks, multicast, market connectivity, and colocation strategies for trading environments.
• Expertise in middleware technologies (Kafka, Tibco, Solace, MQ), database
• performance, and caching strategies.
• Familiarity with market connectivity, order management systems (OMS), and
• execution management systems (EMS).
• Data Centers and Operational Resilience: Experience in data center strategy, hybrid cloud integration, and disaster recovery planning.
• Understanding of high-availability architectures, IT service continuity, and
• regulatory requirements (e.g., BCBS 239, operational resilience guidelines).
• Leadership and Strategic Thinking: Ability to develop and execute a technology roadmap for compute, storage, and networking aligned with trading and business needs.
• Strong stakeholder management, collaborating with trading desks, operations, and regulators to ensure robust and scalable market infrastructure.
• Experience as an agile practitioner and knowledge or experience of other delivery methodologies
• Excellent communication, analytical skills and decision making ability in collaborative environments
• Experience with test-driven development and domain driven design
• Experience with open-source relational databases

Key Accountabilities:

Platform Technologies Direction Setting, Solution Design & Performance Management

• Assume one stop shop accountability for the delivery of ‘Platforms as a Service’ optimally & sustainably
• Proactively & meaningfully collaborate across the value chain in the design & delivery of sustainable Platform Strategies and Solutions
• Conduct ongoing assessments of our existing platform, API & storage technologies & build & communicate relevant insights (consumption, cost etc.) for business decision making
• Leverage expertise in emerging technologies, benchmarks & architecture as well as the broader organisation business strategies to define the appropriate Platforms strategy for the organisation
• Lead & facilitate the design of the appropriate platform solutions & realise our goal to provide ‘platforms as a service’
• Apply design thinking practices to deliver architecturally sound platform solutions (and explain / guide / coach others on this architecture holistically and technically)
• Lead the detailed scoping, prioritisation & integration planning for the design & deployment of platform services with & across multiple stakeholder groups (All businesses)
• Ensure the most optimal design & deployment of platform technologies in the organization (via pipeline – not manually)
• Manage all development & development practices & outputs across platform teams
• Ensure strategies & associated platform solutions deliver on the key technical principles of: self-service, repeatability, testability, scalability & resilience
• Effectively manage the DevOps & Decomm pipelines & associated releases, risk management for maximum customer impact & minimum business risk
• Embed a culture of ongoing maintenance & optimization of platforms as a ‘way of doing things’. You are fully accountable for the longevity of solutions.
• Drive the implementation of an optimised platform base (containerisation, virtualisation) including the optimisation & or decommissioning of legacy platform technologies
• Meaningfully contribute & ensure solutions align to the design & direction of the Group Architecture standards, principles, preferences & practices. Short term deployment must align to strategic long term delivery.
• Define, Agree and manage service offerings and SLAs across multiple stakeholder groups (agree annually and measure on a monthly basis).
• Investigate new ways of work to improve sustainability in services and improve platform resilience, stability, scalability & flexibility and provide solutions aligned with the overall Technology strategy for the bank.
• Strategically & operationally monitor the performance of platforms & associated products & services – ensuring ongoing optimization & cost to value for our businesses (think bank wide)
• Design & leverage dashboards & related insights to influence the direction of Technology for the bank & an overall improvement in the bank’s customer experience
• Continuously coach & mentor platform teams & the broader set of stakeholders on the optimal usage, consumption, development, optimisation etc. of platform technologies
• Drive awareness and collaboration of Platforms services to achieve optimal customer consumption and cost efficiencies.
• Attend relevant forums where direction is taken in terms of the future development of
• Infrastructure Services Africa in management and methodology.

Accountability: Build sustainable practices

• Proactively engage with stakeholders to ensure alignment in the utilisation and maintenance of platforms. Ensure that the various platform teams are adequately skilled and resourced to ensure sustainability.
• Analyse the effectiveness of practices, processes and systems in use in the distributed technologies teams and make recommendations for improvements.
• ‘Stay ahead’ of business needs through proactive engagement with business leaders
• Stay ahead of the curve on emerging technologies & associated technology practices
• Create & on an ongoing basis refine enterprise wide guidelines for Platform Services & Technologies
• Challenge established Group Technology (e.g. architecture, infrastructure) practices and define new practices for the sustainability & competitiveness of the organisation.

Accountability: People Management

• Set and cascade strategic direction across the team
• Proactively attract, recruit, develop, retain, reward & deploy a diverse resource base aligned to an ever evolving tech environment (ahead of demand)
• Build a high performance team environment & culture through self-directed teams by driving performance management & measurement that is aligned with agile working practices (including daily, weekly, etc. sprint routines, regular & honest feedback etc.)
• Assume one stop shop accountability for the right people in the right teams to deliver on our tech strategy (always!)
• Leverage coaching techniques in all squad related activity to drive a higher quality design and deployment of technical products and services
• Contribute to the ongoing evolution & design of leading people practices for the effective attraction & retention of a highly skilled technical workforce
• Contribute to the development of technical teams by sharing best practices and specialist knowledge on an ongoing basis

Education

• Bachelor's Degree: Information Technology