Platform Owner: IT Essentials and Release Management at Sanlam Group

What will you do?

• We are now looking for a Platform Owner to join our newly established Platform Area: IT Essentials and Release  Management
• Your job as Platform Owner in practice is to lead and own the development of existing and new platforms. You will ensure the realization of the agreed roadmap and ensure relevance by staying aligned with the product owners and other consumers of your services and components. You will need to both ensure a technology focus as well as bringing the customer and usability perspective into the design and development of the services and components. As a platform owner you will work very close to the agile teams and Group Technology stakeholders, and similarly be responsible for the backlog that concerns Environments, Change and IT Essentials.

Key Responsibilities

• Accountable and provide leadership and guidance to delivery and agile teams to ensure agreed availability, supportability, and operational capability for all Sanlam Corporate applications.
• Resource management including people development and reviews.
• Support agile events, including presentations, introductions, show & tells, and retrospectives.
• Maintain an understanding of the existing and potential platform capabilities.
• Proactive identification of platform enhancements (including non-functional), facilitate communication of roadmaps and ensure stakeholder engagement.
• Work collaboratively with operational teams across Sanlam Corporate and Sanlam Group Technology to lead prioritisation of changes.
• Build and maintain a relationship network with key stakeholders
• Define, drive and adhere to the adoption of platform principles / standards/ governance/ risk and audit.
• Establish business continuity process for the Platform.
• Maintain an understanding of the current and emerging company strategy, business plans, CX, designs and Brand as they affect the Sanlam Corporate applications.
• Share knowledge and expertise to support business and IT change, Scaled Agile Framework as a system for implementing Agile, Lean, and DevOps practices at scale.
• Help to provide training within the department
• Review and approve estimation and impact assessment activities to support capacity and capability planning as well as key system documentation
• Act as a point of escalation for Platform related Defects and Major Incidents
• Define target platform structure, drive the transformation to reach the target and govern adherence
• Being the main contributor to building the overall platform roadmap and to take platform decisions and prioritisations within set guardrails.
• Establish key performance measurements for the Platform Area of Change, Environments and IT Essentials and provide monthly reports.
• Managing and approval of server infrastructure for Sanlam Corporate IT and ensure the allocation is within the budget.
• Cultivate and demonstrate innovation within the Platform.