Specialist - Digital Platforms Technology Information at MTN

Mission/ Core purpose of the Job

• Working closely with the MTN Executive Leadership Team and the Opco CEOs, the Executive:

Mission/ Core purpose of the Job

• The Digital Platform Technology Specialist is a Technical lead who is responsible for a set of Digital Platforms that supports MTN’s Digital Products and Services. This role manages the architectural and design decisions that requires to be implemented with each initiative within the team.
• The Specialist is an executor as well as the subject matter expert on the deep technical details of each implementation/ initiative as per the agreed technical solution. The specialist will also control and ensure that the solution design is aligned and supported by the platform capabilities.
• The Specialist values simplicity and is not afraid to challenge and create awareness of technical constraints and procedures to achieve an Agile design.
• The Specialist  works closely with all team members to create a modular, scalable solution and or system design that addresses/incorporates the business and/or technical requirement as well as future architectural changes and designs.
• The Specialist will control the teams engineering practices in test driven development, continuous integration, and automated deployment.
• The Specialist  is a hands-on team member who actively assist and support the team to solve complex problems.

Context (Global influences, environmental / industry demands, organisational mission etc.)

Organisational Mission

• MTN is evolving from a mobile communications provider to a digital platform operator where innovation, operational and commercial excellence is critical for success. To excel today and sustain future growth, MTN must develop the required capabilities internally to provide the market and customers with EPIC experiences, products and services which fulfil the belief that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.
• To this extent the Online team are responsible for creating and operating digital platforms which bring our products and services to customers in the easiest and most seamless manner in the form of contextualised and personalised experiences available anywhere and anytime.
• The Online team are helping to bring about a transformational journey to infuse new capabilities, combining customer experience, data and digital technologies to MTN’s core connectivity business, emerging fintech and rich media offerings in order to digitise processes and innovate customer engagement.

Global Influences / Environmental & Industry Demands

• Highly dynamic and fluctuating Telecommunications industry
• Highly competitive market with new and established competitors
• Fast moving industry
• Legislative changes
• Rapid pace of digitalization
• Prevailing economic pressures affecting staff and customers
• Fluid complexities of customer expectations and demands

Key Performance Areas: Core, essential responsibilities / outputs of the position (KPA's)

Functional Leadership

• Control and ensure the best implementation of the overall technological platform design to support the required Digital Product and/or Services.
• Guide cross functional vendor teams on technology strategy related to coding practices, continuous integration and automated deployment
• Responsible for the detailed technical design of a platform that support the Digital Products and Services
• Be hands on and engage in coding to help the team to develop the solution and solve all surfacing problems at hand Identifies and removes technical impediments
• Constantly look for better ways of solving technical problems and designing the solution, not afraid of challenging the status quo
• Owns the roadmap for implementing the jointly agreed target state architecture
• Manages software engineering practices for higher code quality
• Share responsibility with other Technical leads for building reusable and scalable components

Strategic input

• Assist in providing input to the Digital Products and Services strategy
• Assist in Identifying key changes to the current digital systems from technological, commercial, business and consumer behaviour perspectives for input towards the larger Digital Products and Services Roadmap

Collaboration

• Work closely with Tech Leads and developers of various teams to assess existing problems and to come up with process improvement solutions
• Detect upcoming bottlenecks and production issues proactively and consult teams hands-on towards improved technical solutions.
• Thought partner with the other technical leads in story creation and acceptance criteria, and communicate tradeoffs effectively with Designers

Planning & Delivery

• Participate in planning delivery time, code quality, and process efficiency improvement projects
• Execute on plan by building coding standardizations and automating processes for the larger Digital Products and Services team
• Perform daily tasks such as environmental health checks, disk space monitoring, and environmental status reports

Stakeholders

• Interface with internal cross functional experts to anticipate customer needs and facilitate solutions development.
• Be seen as the technical expert on the in dept details of the Digital Products and Services
• Collaborate across functional teams within the Broader MTN SA team to enable the development of solutions necessary to drive the desired business outcomes for customers using Digital Products and Services.
• Survey developers and technical members of the organization to understand their main pain points in the coding and development process

Governance and Risk Management

• Ensure compliance of all digital products and services with all regulatory, commercial and business requirements (e.g. Security, Fraud, TCF)
   
• Develop and manage the implementation of functional policies, standard operating procedures and best practices that ensure operational efficiency, accuracy, security, integrity and compliance with relevant laws and regulations.
• Manage partners and ensure all contracts are managed in line with procurement policies and standards, in order to drive compliance to set processes and procedures.
• Ensure system documentation is sufficiently detailed and up to date to ensure business continuity and prevent over-reliance on a few individuals

People Leadership and Organisational Capability Building

• Hold indirect reports accountable for the achievement of business plans and take corrective actions where necessary to ensure achievement of business objectives.
• Instil the Cloud engineering domain knowledge within the technical support team.
• Coach and mentor junior team members
• Act as an ambassador and role model for the Technology by living the brand values and vital behaviours.
• Make environment the best place to work.
• Improve the employee engagement through the GCA/Sentimeter.
• Participate in the attraction, development and retention of Planning and Engineering talent.
• Assist in ensuring a culture of continuous evaluation and improvement.
• Drive a culture of high performance, accountability and consequence management.

Financial Management

• Support in obtaining approval for digital systems equipment configurations to be ordered from suppliers including cost control and full lifecycle costing
• Support the Senior Manager in identifying and eliminating non-contributory expenditures

Job Requirements (Education, Experience and Competencies)

Education:

• B.Sc Computer Science or BEng (Electronic), or related education

Experience:

• Minimum of 3-6 years’ experience in area of specialisation
• Experience in Continuous Integration/Delivery
• Proficient in development languages
• Proficient in Mobile Application development
• Experience working in a medium to large organization
• Seasoned developer or technical lead with deep insight into newest technologies
• and trends, Java/JVM, and nice to have experience with functional programming (Scala)
• Experience in developing and scaling high-quality eCommerce tech platforms in cross-functional product teams
• Experience in Agile Development, with specific to a technology lead or expert
• Experience managing technical priorities within the Backlog

Technical Skills:

• Seen as an expert within the technical components of the applications / domains / products / journeys
• Can make architecture and design decisions at an application and product level
• Deep tech knowledge around platform architecture, frontend and backend frameworks and cloud; experience in coaching teams
• Understands relationship with Product Owner, Scrum Master, Design Lead  and rest of technical team
• Strong communication skills with ability to align the organization on complex technical decisions
• Active coach and mentor whose goals are to grow and maximize the team’s potential
• High energy and passionate individual who inspires teammates to reach their
• maximum potential
• Excited about trying new solutions outside standard approved
• Embraces a culture of trust, free thought complete transparency
• Brave and rebellious, willing to challenge status quo
• Strong communication skills with ability to communicate complex technical concepts and align organization on decisions
• Sound problem-solving skills with the ability to quickly process complex information and present it clearly and simply
• Utilizes team collaboration to create innovative solutions efficiently