Senior Technical Operations Support Analyst (Sandton) at Blue Label Telecoms

Job Purpose

• The Senior Technical Operations Support Analyst plays a key role in ensuring the stability, efficiency, and reliability of critical business applications and infrastructure.
• This individual will provide advanced support for production systems, automate operational tasks, and collaborate closely with development and DevOps teams to enhance system performance and streamline deployment processes. 
• The ideal candidate has extensive SQL & Oracle knowledge, hands-on experience with Azure DevOps, and a proven ability to troubleshoot complex technical issues in fast-paced enterprise environments

Key Responsibilities

Root Cause Analysis

• Conduct thorough root cause analysis for recurring or critical incidents, identifying underlying issues and implementing preventive measures to mitigate future occurrences.

Production System Monitoring and Incident Management

• Monitor complex production systems, servers, and applications to ensure optimal performance and availability.
• Manage and prioritize incidents according to severity levels, adhering to established SLAs (Service Level Agreements) to minimize downtime and impact on business operations.
• Respond to and resolve complex production incidents, service interruptions, and performance issues in a timely manner.
• Conduct root cause analysis and implement corrective actions to prevent recurring incidents.

Escalation Management & System Maintenance 

• Act as a point of escalation for unresolved technical issues, coordinating with other teams or vendors as necessary to ensure timely resolution.
• Perform routine maintenance tasks, such as applying patches, updates, and configuration changes to production environments.
• Coordinate and execute changes following change management processes and procedures.
• Ensure configuration consistency and adherence to best practices across production systems. 

Incident Response and Problem Resolution

• Serve as a primary point of contact for production-related incidents and service requests.
• Collaborate with development, infrastructure, and support teams to troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues.
• Escalate critical incidents and engage necessary resources to expedite resolution.

Continuous Improvement and Performance Optimization

• Identify opportunities to optimize system performance, reliability, and scalability.
• Implement proactive measures to enhance system monitoring, alerting, and capacity planning.
• Recommend and implement process improvements to streamline production support activities

Security and Compliance

• Ensure production systems comply with security policies, standards, and regulatory requirements.
• Implement security controls, access management, and vulnerability remediation measures.
• Participate in security audits, assessments, and remediation efforts as needed.

Documentation and Knowledge Management

• Maintain comprehensive documentation of production systems, configurations, and troubleshooting procedures.
• Update knowledge base articles, runbooks, and incident response documentation.
• Contribute to training materials and share knowledge with team members to improve collective expertise. 

Change Management & Vendor Management 

• Participate in the planning and execution of changes to production systems, ensuring proper testing and validation to minimize risk of disruptions.
• Collaborate with external vendors and service providers to troubleshoot issues, implement upgrades, and ensure compliance with contractual agreements.

Self-Management & Leadership

• Provide guidance and mentorship to junior members of the support team, assisting with technical challenges and fostering professional growth.
• Set an example through personal quality and productivity standards and ways of working with others.
• Demonstrate consistent application of internal procedures. Plan and priorities, demonstrating abilities to manage competing demands.
• Demonstrate abilities to anticipate and manage change. Demonstrate flexibility. in balancing achievement of own objectives with abilities to understand and respond to organisational and team needs
• Drive customer centricity.
• Proven leadership, organizational, and communication skills with the ability to influence and collaborate across functions.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills with the ability to influence and collaborate across functions.

Requirements

Competencies

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Proficiency in using monitoring tools and diagnostic utilities.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to interact effectively with stakeholders at all levels.
• Strong leadership abilities with experience in guiding and mentoring junior team members.
• Certifications related to system administration (e.g., Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate, AWS Certified SysOps Administrator) are a plus.
• Knowledge of scripting languages (e.g., PowerShell, Bash) for automation and task scheduling.
• Ability to work under pressure, prioritize tasks, and adapt to changing priorities in a dynamic environment.
• Strong analytical mindset with a focus on problem-solving and continuous improvement.
• Ability to work standby shifts 

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, or related field (or equivalent work experience. (Azure Certifications Required)

Experience

• 5+ years of experience in technical operations, production support, or systems analysis roles.
• Experience with SQL, Oracle & AI Technologies
• Strong SQL skills (queries, stored procedures, performance tuning, troubleshooting). Ability to write, optimize, and troubleshoot SQL queries within Oracle environments
• Strong Oracle database knowledge and hands-on experience (database structures, performance troubleshooting, data extraction).
• Hands-on experience with Azure DevOps
• Proven ability to diagnose and resolve complex application or infrastructure issues.
• Experience with scripting/automation (e.g., PowerShell, Bash, Python).