Specialist Support Engineer

SUMMARY:
We’re looking for a Specialist Support Engineer who loves solving complex technical problems and helping customers succeed. You’ll troubleshoot advanced issues, work closely with engineering teams, communicate clearly with customers, and help improve our products and support processes. The ideal candidate is technically curious, calm under pressure, and passionate about delivering great support. In return, you’ll join a collaborative team with room to grow, flexible working, and the chance to make a real impact every day.

POSITION INFO:
JOB DESCRIPTION:


Job Title: Specialist Support Engineer
Employment Type: 11 months Contract
Work Location: Johannesburg North/Remote


JOB CONTEXT:
We are seeking a Specialist Support Engineer which is responsible for the stability, security, and continuous improvement of enterprise banking applications. This role combines application support and DevOps practices to ensure high availability, strong performance, and compliance within a regulated banking environment.
Working across the full application lifecycle, the role partners with business stakeholders, technology teams, and vendors to deliver reliable systems, manage upgrades and incidents, and drive improvements that enhance resilience and efficiency. The Specialist Support Engineer plays a key role in minimizing business disruption, meeting service commitments, and enabling technology solutions that support critical banking operations.


DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
Devops And Support:

• Apply critical thinking, design thinking and problem-solving skills to solve technical problems on existing applications.
• Implement all configurations, optimization (e.g. upgrades) & maintenance activity (e.g. regular maintenance patches) for enterprise-wide applications.
• Provide efficient and effective support of applications including continued development of the application and security, software patches, reliability, disaster recovery and ensure the application meets the business needs.
• Schedule and oversee planned maintenance tasks, such as backups and performance tuning, for production IT services to prevent and to minimize issues.
• Maintain correct and current application documentation and make it available to application users.
• Oversee application implementation and configuration, patches, upgrades and maintenance, and ensure that application performance meets agreed SLAs and OLAs.
• Ensure minimal business operations impact due to upgrades and maintenance activities.
• Coordinate and execute unplanned maintenance tasks, such as disaster recovery procedures, for production IT services to prevent and to minimize issues.
• Manage applications throughout their lifecycle and assist in the application-related aspects of designing, testing, operating and improving technology products & services services.
• Coordinate & communicate across Tribes & Squads (all businesses) to successfully complete application upgrades.
• Coordinate with infrastructure & architecture teams to ensure that the impact of system / platform migrations on applications is minimized.
• Develop and maintain knowledge in application functionality, user workflow, and business processes.
• Develop sufficient knowledge of application infrastructure (server, network, security) & broader organization architecture to assist with application upgrades and troubleshooting issues.
• Compile and maintain inventory of applications and related details.
• Manage and provide support aligned to all SLA’s.
• Develop the skills required to operate and maintain the technical products & services (applications) Ensure that a backup system for applications and files associated with business operations is in place.
• Advise on software installation and upgrades, troubleshoot problems and provide resolutions.
• Work with Information Security teams to define and implement access permissions for applications.
• Develop and maintain expertise in application functionality, user workflow, and business processes.
• Receive and screen user programming requests for new applications or modifications and determine appropriate priority and response.
• Develop and communicate training and documentation for end users.
• Act as a liaison between business stakeholders and customers, external solution providers, and IT stakeholders for application support specific requirements .
• Develop and / or assist with the development and / or execution of project plans for application upgrades.
• Provide input to current and future application requirements to meet the organization's needs.
• Prepare assessments for proposed applications, projects, and define appropriate integration and access requirements.
• Maintain awareness of application risks and opportunities for improvement.
• Identify and recommend application improvement to enhance capability and performance and minimize costs.
• Ensure that application users are aware of the application capabilities for enabling their effective use,
• Assess vendor proposals for appropriateness and compliance with organization and industry standards.
• Participate in development of Requests for Proposals (RFP) and vendor evaluation and contract management for IT applications services.
• Supervise and maintain the organization's repository of applications,
• Help diagnose problems and resolve incidents / issues related to applications.
• Validate the known error database for application-related entries,
• Work with Tech Centres of Enablement to define the operational activities related to the applications.

• Monitor application modification requests and ensure best practices are being utilized.
• Conduct diagnostic investigations of program errors and implement or recommend solutions or methodologies for resolution.
• Maintain metrics of operational performance and evaluate trends.
• Analyse business systems to determine effectiveness, identify inadequacies, inefficiencies and problems and recommend solutions.

• Enhance methods and procedures for collecting, analysing, and documenting application issues, and completing user change requests.
• Enhance IT processes for transitioning completed configurations from development to production.
• Plan and coordinate the processes for the provision of user applications and systems necessary for business operations.
• Define and maintain application assessment, development, and support standards, and work with other IT and business stakeholders to establish configuration and use guidelines.

• Relevant B-Degree in Computer Science preferred but not essential if minimum requirements of experience & practical application that enables application support in the following is evident:

• Automation
• Messaging
• Integration
• Solutioning
• SSL Security
• CI/CD etc.

• Certification in IT Service Management / IT Governance (ITIL / CoBIT), (Foundation level).
• Minimum 3-5 years’ IT/ IT Consulting Experience.
• Minimum 3-5 years’ Application Management Experience.
• Minimum 3-5 years Application Diagnostics Experience.
• Experience in Application for Support.
• Experience and Knowledge of Banking and Financial Services Business.
• Experience in Stakeholder Management.
• Experience in Testing.
• Some Experience with test-driven development and domain driven design.
• Knowledge of open-source relational databases.
• Knowledge of application server containers: Tomcat, Jetty, JBoss, NodeJS, IIS, .Net Core etc.
• Understanding of libraries like JavaScript, jQuery, TypeScript, HTML, CSS.
• Knowledge of CI / CD tools (like Jenkins, Bamboo, TFS, Azure Devops) and Artifact Management (preferably Nexus).
• Knowledge of version control and related concepts and techniques, particularly Git Experience with appropriate unit testing framework(s) Excellent debugging and problem-solving skills.
• Knowledge of stubbing tools like wiremock and/or hoverfly.
• Knowledge of scripting languages like Bash and/or Python.
• Understanding of Cloud platforms e.g. Azure, AWS & Google Cloud Platform.
• Some knowledge of OAuth, Open Connect ID and SAML, preferably with an understanding of AD / LDAP / Kerberos.
• Familiar with Containerisation technologies like Docker & or orchestrators like Kubernetes.

• Minimum 3-5 years’ IT/ IT Consulting Experience.
• Minimum 3-5 years’ Application Management Experience.
• Minimum 3-5 years Application Diagnostics Experience.
• Excellent understanding of specific coding / scripting languages e.g. Java, C#, Python, Perl, JavaScript.
• Knowledge of application server containers: Tomcat, Jetty, JBoss, NodeJS, IIS, .Net Core etc.
• Familiar with Containerisation technologies like Docker & or orchestrators like Kubernetes.
• Experience in Quality Assurance.
• Experience & understanding of Disaster Recovery, & business continuity management.
• Knowledge of messaging protocols and web services like SOAP and REST.
• Experience in Testing.
• Experience and Knowledge of Banking and Financial Services Business.

• Minimum 2–3-year experience in Finance sector.
• Certification in IT Service Management / IT Governance (ITIL / CoBIT), (Foundation level).

• Compensation will be determined based on qualifications, applicable banking experience, and previous earnings.