Senior Manager: Cloud Architecture at MTN

Mission/ Core purpose of the Job

• The Senior Manager: Cloud Architecture is a member of MTN’s Cloud Centre of Excellence team who is responsible for the design, development, implementation and management of cloud technology across MTN.  The team are focused on delivering all aspects related to MTN’s cloud transformation and value realisation across MTN’s markets through technology leadership and collaboration with the relevant stakeholders to enable growth, achieve sustainability and unlock value through TCO reduction as well as business enablement.

Key Performance Areas: Core, essential responsibilities / outputs of the position (KPA's)
The Senior Manager: Cloud Architecture will be accountable to achieve the following objectives:

• Define and maintain the cloud reference architecture aligned with the business goals of GCOO, Group Digital, EBU and other business stakeholders for cloud and data centre strategy.  Address all different types of workloads and pursue optimum value creation approaches for the MTN environment (e.g. public cloud migration, hybrid models, on-premise cloud technology adoption)
• Facilitate compliance to Telco Cloud reference bodies such as ETSI, GSMA, 3GPP & ITU (in collaboration with the network strategy team).
• Establish, document and drive adoption the CCOE processes, standards, service catalogue, value realisation framework and governance model across ManCo, OpCos and other stakeholders
• Drive the value realisation planning within the CCoE to guide investments and budget allocation in order to maximise value creation and minimise time to value from cloud related initiatives (across Manco and OpCos) and provide CapEx and OpEx budget guidelines to OpCos in the annual budget cycle
• Support all Cloud Centre of Excellence activities and liaise with its stakeholders to establish thought leadership and strategy towards value realisation (estimated value of the opportunity is multi-billion ZAR)

Provide technical leadership on cloud delivery projects

• Oversee the architecture adopted in cloud delivery projects to ensure alignment to the established CCOE reference architecture and standards; conduct reviews of implementation projects, identify issues and determine root cause, and improve processes to prevent recurring issues
• Provide inputs into and review recommendations for continuous improvement of processes and governance
• Work cross functionally with other BUs (e.g. EBU), MTN platform businesses (e.g. Fintech) and other stakeholders to align Cloud activities and deliverables
• Create detailed migration strategy and migration approaches and processes in line with the CCOE strategy for the migration of the selected workloads
• Help the migration team to document migration requirements including project planning, load scheduling and testing
• Foster innovation together with the strategic partners and evolve the CCOE strategy based on their new features/innovation roadmap
• Help drive the contractual and operational aspects of MTN’s relationship with the selected cloud providers

Key Deliverables

• Cloud strategy for Manco and OpCos including deployment, planning and readiness assessment framework
• Cloud roadmap throughout the Group
• Cloud adoption business case framework and Business cases support for workload migration
• Cloud reference architecture for IT and Network workloads (incl public cloud migrations as well as cloud native technology adoption in hybrid cloud scenarios)
• Cloud technology standards and reference designs (incl security)
• Cloud Governance framework, including
• Value Realisation framework
• Cloud Architecture Review Board
• New policies definition or existing policy updates
• Reporting
• Cloud Operations Management Framework and SLA/OLA/WLA for cloud service management and continuous improvement initiatives
• Key performance indicators (KPIs) and critical success factors related to the execution of the Cloud strategy across Manco and OpCos
• Cloud Service Catalogue and associated charging model for OpCos
• Cloud COE initiated or supported innovation
• Cloud Test Lab design and delivery.

Role Dependencies

• Active support from the General Manager: Cloud Centre of Excellence
• Deep understanding of the MTN business strategy
• Understanding of the OpCo technology, business and regulatory context

Job Requirements (Education, Experience and Competencies)
Education:

• Minimum 4-year Academic Degree with Honours (B Eng / BSc Degree Preferred)
• MBA / Masters advantageous
• English – French and Arabic (advantageous)
• Relevant certification/accreditation/membership with professional body as required for role

Experience:

• 10 years of the overall experience, including 5 years of enterprise architecture.
• Minimum 3 years’ relevant sector/industry/area of specialisation (e.g. relevant consulting or industry experience and large scale, enterprise-class consulting or systems integration experience)
• Minimum 3 years’ experience in cloud architecture, cloud adoption, application migration (towards public cloud providers and hybrid models), governance and processes in a CCOE or equivalent structure related to Cloud Strategy and Architecture for IT and Telco workloads
• Experience with architecting, designing, implementing, or operating IT/Telco systems on leading commercial cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, GCP etc
• Experience with large and complex IT/NW systems in an enterprise environment using virtualization or private Cloud technologies (e.g. VMware, Xen, OpenStack, Hyper-V)
• Working experiences with Telco Cloud environment such as abstraction layer of Telco OEMs Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, ZTE and others.
• Sound knowledge of cloud management, automation, orchestration, application lifecycle management and associated tools as well as the partner ecosystem
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code automation tools/platforms (e.g. AWS CloudFormation, Terraform, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, SaltStack) and software configuration and release management tools such as GitHub
• Experience helping development teams build and deploy microservices-based applications in the public cloud with Continuous Integration & Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) tools and processes such as Jenkins.
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and other Container Orchestration and API exposure platforms (e.g. APIgee ).
• Understanding of Identity and Access Management, user and system authentication methods and certificates, tokens and certificate management.
• Associate or higher-level certification of public cloud providers.
• Proficiency in Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and related concepts on the public cloud.
• Self-starter with in-depth hands-on work experience with large-scale implementations of public cloud platforms.
• Experience in RFP management and executive presentation.
• Work across diverse cultures and geographies

Competencies:

• Business Acumen, Problem Solving, Information processing, Influencing others
• Data interpretation, Judgement, Continuous improvement, Reporting
• Get it done, Communication, Innovative, Agile, Accountable

Other:

• Regional travel
• Collaboration (Formal and Informal Relationships)

Responsibility towards:

• Key customers: Group COO, Group EBU and EBU CoE, Group Digital & Fintecth, MTN Opcos, Group Information Security, Group Exco
• Key suppliers: Key Technology Partners, Relevant Industry Bodies