Lead Platforms - Virtualization

Absa is committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from suitably qualified individuals from diverse backgrounds. In support of our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) commitments and Employment Equity objectives, preference may be given to candidates from underrepresented designated groups, including persons with disabilities. We encourage applicants who may require reasonable accommodation during the recruitment process to let us know so that appropriate support can be provided.

Job Summary

Own the strategy, engineering, resilience and operational excellence of enterprise virtualization platforms across on-premises, hybrid-cloud and modern infrastructure environments.

We are seeking an exceptional Lead Platforms professional specialising in Virtualization to shape the design, evolution and operational excellence of our enterprise virtualization estate. This senior leadership role sets platform strategy and technical direction while ensuring virtualization services remain modern, resilient, secure, cost-effective and aligned to business needs across the organisation.

As a key technology leader, you will own the end-to-end lifecycle of the virtualization platform, from architecture and engineering through service operations, optimisation and modernisation. You will enable infrastructure agility, workload mobility, engineering excellence and dependable customer outcomes while actively managing technology concentration, lifecycle and vendor risks.

• Define and articulate a clear virtualization platform vision, strategy and multi-year roadmap aligned to business strategy and Group Technology architecture standards.
• Set the target architecture for enterprise virtualization across compute, network, storage, security, automation, disaster recovery and cloud integration.
• Partner with CIOs, CTO, Architecture, Engineering, Security, Cloud and Product teams to translate business and workload requirements into platform capabilities.
• Identify opportunities to simplify, standardise and modernise the virtual estate, including workload placement, private cloud, container integration and exit or diversification strategies where appropriate.

• Lead the design, deployment and evolution of enterprise virtualization platforms, including VMware vSphere / VMware Cloud Foundation, Microsoft Hyper-V, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization or equivalent technologies relevant to the target architecture.
• Drive automation-first engineering using infrastructure-as-code, APIs, configuration management, policy-as-code and self-service provisioning.
• Engineer scalable and repeatable platform patterns for clusters, hosts, virtual machines, templates, images, networking, storage, backup and recovery.
• Ensure platform solutions are secure by design, highly available, testable, observable and supported through clear engineering standards and lifecycle controls.

• Own platform health, capacity, availability, performance, demand, cost-to-serve and customer-experience measures.
• Use telemetry and analytics to improve resource utilisation, right-size workloads, reduce capacity waste and prevent performance saturation.
• Establish standards, service guardrails, reference patterns, runbooks and technical debt remediation plans.
• Drive platform hygiene across firmware, hypervisors, management components, tools, hardware compatibility, certificates and end-of-support exposure.

• Act as the senior escalation point for major virtualization incidents, systemic service degradation and complex platform defects.
• Lead rapid restoration, technical problem management and root-cause elimination with minimal business impact.
• Own resilience engineering across high availability, fault domains, backup integration, disaster recovery, recovery testing and capacity headroom.
• Ensure compliance with security, vulnerability, patching, change, audit, SLA/OLA, licensing and technology-risk requirements.

• Build, lead and coach high-performing virtualization and platform engineering squads, fostering agile delivery, accountability, continuous learning and engineering mastery.
• Develop a centre of enablement that partners across infrastructure, cloud, application and business technology teams.
• Recruit, retain and grow engineering talent through succession planning, skills development and forward-looking capability planning.
• Create a strong operational culture focused on automation, service ownership, measurable outcomes and continuous improvement.

• Lead platform financial planning, unit-cost modelling, capacity investment, licence optimisation and cost reduction initiatives.
• Manage strategic technology partners, contracts, support models, renewals and vendor performance across the virtualization ecosystem.
• Mitigate vendor concentration and lock-in risk through commercial insight, architecture optionality, portability and disciplined technology lifecycle decisions.
• Build evidence-based investment cases for platform modernisation, estate optimisation and technology transitions.

• 8-10 years of experience in enterprise infrastructure or platform engineering, including leadership accountability for large-scale virtualization services.
• Proven leadership across virtualization architecture, engineering, operations, modernisation, resilience and service management in complex regulated environments.
• Deep knowledge of hypervisor and virtual infrastructure concepts, including clustering, high availability, live migration, resource scheduling, virtual networking, software-defined storage and workload lifecycle management.
• Practical experience with enterprise virtualization technologies such as VMware vSphere / VMware Cloud Foundation, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM and/or Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization.
• Understanding of automation and orchestration technologies such as Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell, Python, APIs and CI/CD toolchains.
• Experience integrating virtualization with storage, backup, disaster recovery, observability, identity, security, CMDB and IT service management capabilities.
• Strong knowledge of hybrid-cloud operating models, workload placement, private cloud, containers and migration or modernisation patterns.
• Commercial acumen across licensing, vendor management, capacity economics, asset lifecycle and total cost of ownership.
• Strong stakeholder management, executive communication and cross-functional leadership skills.
• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering or a related field. Relevant industry certifications are advantageous.

• Resilient services - Stable, recoverable virtualization services with measurable reduction in repeat incidents, technical debt and unsupported components.
• Modern engineering - Automated, policy-driven and repeatable platform delivery with reduced manual effort and faster fulfilment.
• Efficient estate - Transparent capacity, utilisation, licence and unit-cost outcomes supported by active optimisation and decommissioning.
• Controlled risk - Clear ownership and remediation of security, lifecycle, audit, vendor and concentration risks.
• Customer value - Reliable platform capabilities that improve workload onboarding, engineering productivity and service experience.

If you are a visionary virtualization platform leader who thrives in complex environments and enjoys shaping resilient, automated and future-ready engineering ecosystems, we would love to meet you.

Education