Regional IT Manager at SA Metal Group

Job description:

Responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:

• Take full management responsibility for the Cape Town IT team, setting priorities and standards, delegating with clear expectations and holding the team accountable for service delivery across the region
• Manage the team formally through objective-setting, performance reviews, development plans and succession planning
• Run the team’s day-to-day operations, covering task allocation, the standby roster, leave and coverage planning, so branch and after-hours support are always provided for
• Run the regional helpdesk queue, from triage and prioritisation through to ageing review and closure quality, with scheduled reporting to the Group IT Manager
• Accountable for all Cape Town IT incidents, including major-incident response, technician and supplier coordination, business communication, and root-cause reporting
• Operate a documented change process for servers, firewalls, network and plant-adjacent systems, including planned maintenance windows with tested rollback steps
• Manage daily estate health checks covering backups, servers and Hyper-V capacity, firewall and VPN status, mail flow, cameras, biometric systems and branch links, ensuring alerts are acknowledged and actioned promptly
• Manage branch connectivity (LAN, WAN and wireless) across the Western Cape, seeing ISP faults through to resolution and conducting scheduled site visits to all branches
• Manage IT support for weighbridge and yard operations, with defined response commitments during operating hours and documented recovery procedures
• Deliver the region’s security workload to group standards, including patching, firewall hardening, MFA rollout, backup and restore verification, log retention and Active Directory hygiene
• Handle working-level liaison with the Group’s security, network and connectivity service providers, escalating matters of contract, scope, spend or architecture to the Group IT Manager
• Plan and deliver regional IT projects and rollouts
• Maintain regional documentation, including runbooks, procedures and post-incident reports, and keep it current

Qualifying Criteria

• A minimum of 15 years’ IT infrastructure experience
• Relevant IT qualification, preferably with a management component
• Minimum 8 years’ direct line-management experience leading a medium-sized technical team
• A proven track record of building and developing technical teams, including experience in recruitment, formal performance management, coaching, mentoring, and staff development

Expected to be proficient in managing:

• Firewalls (OS upgrades, SSL-VPN/IPsec, policy hardening, MFA)
• Windows Server 2016–2022 (Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Group Policy)
• Hyper-V, including failover and disaster recovery
• Advantageous experience includes MikroTik, Veeam, Azure, Project Management Foundation, POPIA,
• Fortinet NSE4/FCP, ITIL 4 Foundation, and a Practitioner-level Security certification
• Delivered at least one security remediation programme from start to finish (patching, MFA rollout, firewall hardening or network segmentation), validated by external assessment or penetration test
• Planned and delivered multi-site infrastructure rollouts under change control
• Backup and disaster-recovery design with tested, documented restores
• Managed a service desk/ticket queue on a PSA/RMM platform
• Managed outsourced service providers to SLA
• Experience in multi-site industrial, manufacturing or logistics environments, including plant-adjacent systems (weighbridges, PLCs, access control, CCTV)
• Participated in live security-incident response, including containment, communication and post-incident review
• Expected to be proficient in AI technologies, including Claude AI, with the ability to develop effective prompts, create automated workflows, and leverage AI-driven solutions to improve IT operations, productivity, and service delivery while maintaining a security-first mindset
• Own reliable transport, with regular travel across Cape Town branches
• After-hours availability

Qualifying Attributes:

• Business-fluent in English, able to communicate clearly and professionally in both written and verbal communication
• Proven ability to lead and effectively manage a team comprising employees with varying levels of experience, seniority, and technical expertise
• Must be of sober habits and able to operate safely and responsibly within an industrial environment
• Exceptional attention to detail, with precision in daily checks, configurations, documentation and reporting that catches the small things before they become incidents
• Demonstrates a calm, composed, and decisive approach, particularly when working under pressure or dealing with challenging situations
• Able to communicate effectively and build positive working relationships with employees and stakeholders at all levels of the organisation
• Ensures that all activities, repairs, and corrective actions are properly documented and recorded in accordance with established processes
• Demonstrates a proactive approach to escalation, raising concerns, risks, and challenges early through the appropriate channels to ensure timely intervention and resolution
• Strong time-management, prioritization, and organizational skills
• Commitment to a strong business ethic and integrity
• Result-driven: Excellent standards in execution
• Critical thinking and conflict resolution ability