Site Reliability Engineer (Bellville)

at  Metropolitan Life

INTRODUCTION

Metropolitan is one of the oldest financial services brands in South Africa. With a 125-year legacy of serving the communities in which it operates, Metropolitan represents true empowerment in serving Africa’s people through affordable financial solutions that create financial growth and security. Metropolitan operates in South Africa, but the brand is also present in 7 African countries including, Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, Ghana and Lesotho. Metropolitan provides financial wellness solutions that meet the needs of low-income clients, including funeral insurance, health, savings, hospital cash-back cover, retirement solutions and life insurance. www.metropolitan.co.za

REQUIREMENTS

• Relevant post graduate degree (Desirable)
• Relevant qualification in Computer Science or related technical field involving coding (Essential)
• 3-5 years’ experience in site reliability engineering, operational support of production systems, application and infrastructure monitoring experience within enterprise environments (essential)
• 5-8 years’ experience with system analysis, design or programming and the associated development methodologies (essential)
• Insurance industry experience (desirable)
• Knowledge:
• Understanding of Agile software development concepts and processes
• Deep knowledge in multiple areas of software development, Linux / UNIX systems administration, networking, internet protocols, databases, and distributed systems
• Full competency in software development languages
• System administration and troubleshooting skills, including strong knowledge of how the various components work
• Thorough understanding of networking protocols that make the internet work
• Knowledge of source control system
• Strong knowledge of object-oriented design methodology and software design patterns
• Solid production platform experience with automation
• Multi Data centre management, replication, scaling
• Middleware software
• Java applications including JVM performance and tuning
• Writing custom tools and familiar with open source options
• Working knowledge of ticketing systems
• Working understanding of the UML and Agile Modeling languages
• Knowledge of log analysis and monitoring tools

ROLE PURPOSE

Responsible for application and infrastructure monitoring, focused on improving stability and reliability, and reducing downtime. Ensure seamless integration of Enterprise Monitoring policies and procedures, drive the improvement of existing practices, research and recommend new practices, tools or applications.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Internal Processes:

• Make use of modern tools and orchestration to run release deployments and participate in revising software design to scale and prevent against failures.
• Identify and recommend performance testing tools to be used to meet client requirements.
• Create custom performance testing tools and scripts. Install, configure, and implement performance testing tools in a web /cloud environment for custom developed or packaged software applications and systems. Design, write, and deliver software and systems to manage applications and application infrastructure.
• Develop maintainable / scalable, effective, defect free infrastructure and solutions that meet business requirements and team standards.
• Define SRE requirements by working with key business and IT users and project stakeholders.
• Design, manage, and govern capacity across all technical stacks of the application or system including cloud environments.
• Design processes for automation of code deployment and delivery through all environments of SDLC.
• Configure and monitor cloud infrastructure and services as it pertains to the application’s hardware and business processes.
• Facilitate collaboration between development and operations teams throughout the application lifecycle.
• Partner with Group Information Security to ensure all security policies and audit inquiries are addressed. Prevent and monitor security vulnerabilities.
• Coordinate and align all other technology teams to ensure operational delivery processes are governed and monitored to expedite issue remediation.
• Build dashboards and track metrics for the production systems.
• Monitor system performance and capacity; reports changes in usage and uses data to drive decisions on ensuring compute environment is available, reliable and perform for customers.
• Troubleshoot complex hardware and software issues, takes appropriate corrective action and/or interacts with IT staff or vendors in performing complex testing, support and troubleshooting functions.
• Depict highly complex ideas, issues and designs to varied audiences.

Client:

• Provide authoritative expertise and advice to clients and stakeholders.
• Build and maintain relationships with clients and internal and external stakeholders.
• Deliver on service level agreements made with clients and internal and external stakeholders in order to ensure that client expectations are managed.
• Make recommendations to improve client service and fair treatment of clients within area of responsibility.
• Participate and contribute to a culture which builds rewarding relationships, facilitates feedback and provides exceptional client service.

People:

• Develop and maintain productive and collaborative working relationships with peers and stakeholders.
• Positively influence and participate in change initiatives.
• Continuously develop own expertise in terms of professional, industry and legislation knowledge.
• Contribute to continuous innovation through the development, sharing and implementation of new ideas.
• Take ownership for driving career development.

Finance:

• Identify opportunities to enhance cost effectiveness and increase operational efficiency.
• Manage financial and other company resources under your control with due respect.
• Provide input into the risk identification processes and communicate recommendations in the appropriate forum.