Disaster Recovery jobs in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng

BRIEF AND JOB SPECIFICATION – SENIOR IT OPERATIONS MANAGER (ISP/MSP/IT)

Zinia is seeking an experienced Senior IT Operations Manager to lead the operational delivery of our managed IT and ISP services. This senior leadership role is responsible for IT Support, Projects, Technical and Field Services, and Operations Administration, ensuring consistent service delivery, accountable teams, operational efficiency, and strong commercial performance.

The successful candidate will combine technical understanding, proven people leadership and commercial judgement to maintain and improve our established operating model while supporting Zinia's continued growth.

1. ROLE AT A GLANCE

Position

Senior IT Operations Manager

Company

Zinia ISP Pty Ltd: Technology implementation and management partner

Location

Paulshof, Johannesburg (Sandton area), on-site; occasional after-hours and site visits as operations require

Reports to

Executive Management/General Manager

Direct reports

IT Support, Projects, Technical/Field and Operations Administration leads and teams, with oversight of their staff.

Employment type

Permanent, full-time

Remuneration budget

R65,000 – R85,000 per month cost-to-company, depending on experience (see Section 9)

Start date

As soon as possible; notice period up to 60 days considered

2. ABOUT ZINIA

Zinia is a South African business technology partner helping organisations operate with greater reliability, security and confidence. We design, deliver and manage technology solutions that support business continuity, improve performance and enable sustainable growth.

Our solutions span Managed IT Services, Cybersecurity & Risk, Infrastructure & Cloud, Connectivity & Communications, and Custom Software Development. We work across a range of industries, combining technical expertise, proactive service management and practical business understanding to deliver solutions that make a measurable difference.

At Zinia, we believe technology should deliver business outcomes, not unnecessary complexity. We take ownership, hold ourselves accountable, communicate openly and work collaboratively to solve problems properly. We focus on building trusted, long-term client relationships through consistent service, measurable performance, and continuous improvement.

We're an evolving business with ambitious growth plans, and our people play a critical role in achieving them. We value initiative, accountability, teamwork, knowledge-sharing and people who take pride in doing things well.

The Senior IT Operations Manager plays a central role in delivering on these commitments, ensuring our teams, systems and processes work together to provide reliable service, strong client experiences and operational excellence.

3. PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

To lead and take accountability for the end-to-end operational delivery of Zinia's managed IT and ISP services, ensuring reliable service delivery, operational efficiency, strong client experiences and sustainable commercial performance.

The Senior IT Operations Manager will lead and develop the IT Support, Projects, Technical and Field Services, and Operations Administration teams, strengthening existing systems, processes and service standards while driving accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement.

As a member of Zinia's Management Committee (MANCO), the successful candidate will translate business objectives into operational priorities, optimise resources, manage service performance and operational costs, act as the senior operational representative to management and key clients, and contribute to the company's profitability, growth and long-term success.

Ultimately, this role ensures Zinia consistently delivers on its commitments to clients through dependable technology services, measurable performance, and a team that takes ownership of outcomes.

4. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

4.1 Leadership and people management

• Lead, coach and develop IT Support (Tier 1, 2 and 3), Projects, Technical/field and Operations Administration, ensuring clear reporting lines, accountability and coordination with Solutions Architecture.

• Set individual and team performance objectives; run regular one-on-ones, formal performance reviews and development plans.

• Mentor and build a bench of team leads and future managers; drive succession planning.

• Manage recruitment, onboarding, performance, discipline and retention in conjunction with HR, in line with the Labour Relations Act and company policy.

• Promote ownership, collaboration, consistent service standards and continuous improvement across teams.

• Participate actively in MANCO, translating business objectives into operational priorities and reporting progress, risks and resource requirements.

• Set day-to-day priorities and allocate resources within approved budgets and delegated authority; escalate spending, staffing and delivery risks requiring executive approval.

4.2 Service operations and SLA management

• Own service performance across client environments and contract types, ensuring incident, problem, change, request and escalation processes reflect agreed service scope and priorities.

• Define, monitor and enforce SLAs, OKRs and KPIs covering response and resolution, first-time-fix, uptime, backlog age, ticket quality and customer satisfaction.

• Act as the senior escalation point for critical incidents and outages; coordinate recovery, client updates, root-cause analysis and corrective actions through to closure.

• Maintain and improve the Zinia Atlas, SOPs, runbooks, escalation matrices and change controls; ensure teams follow them and review their effectiveness.

• Mature ITIL-aligned practices and own the effective use of Autotask, IT Glue, VSA and related platforms for ticketing, monitoring, configuration records and knowledge management.

• Ensure accurate ticket classification, time capture, documentation and alert handling; improve platform integration, automation and the quality of configuration and knowledge records.

4.3 Technical and network operations

• Oversee ISP and IT infrastructure, including fibre and wireless access, core and edge networks, VoIP and hosting, together with managed Microsoft 365, cloud, endpoint, cybersecurity and backup services.

• Ensure effective capacity planning, approved changes, maintenance windows and coordination with vendors and upstream providers.

• Manage technician scheduling, installations, fault repairs and field productivity, including workmanship, site safety and completion records.

• Maintain sufficient technical depth to challenge and guide engineering decisions, working through lead engineers and specialists while retaining operational accountability.

• Ensure proactive maintenance, endpoint and patch management, backup monitoring and scheduled restore testing are performed, with failures and exceptions tracked to resolution.

4.4 Project delivery oversight

• Oversee IT and network projects with the project management team, ensuring delivery against agreed scope, schedule, budget and acceptance criteria.

• Maintain a consolidated view of the project pipeline, milestones, dependencies, resource constraints and delivery risks.

• Enforce sales-to-delivery and project-to-support handovers, including configuration records, support requirements, client sign-off and closure documentation.

• Apply appropriate project governance, control scope changes and additional work, and use post-implementation reviews to improve delivery.

• Review proposed scope, labour estimates, resource availability, dependencies and supportability with Sales and Solutions Architecture before delivery commitments are finalised.

4.5 Customer experience

• Work with account management, customer service and Sales to deliver a consistent client experience and ensure service commitments match operational capacity.

• Own key-account operational escalations, engage client management where needed, and coordinate recovery plans and communication with account managers.

• Use survey results, complaints and service trends to identify recurring issues; assign corrective actions and verify their completion with relevant teams.

4.6 Financial and resource management

• Manage departmental budgets and delivery costs against approved revenue and margin targets, with clear reporting of variances and corrective actions.

• Align staffing, workload, field scheduling and on-call coverage to demand; monitor utilisation, productive capacity and service coverage.

• Oversee operational procurement and supplier performance, including purchase approvals, delivery dependencies, cost control and contract reviews within delegated authority.

• Improve automation, platform adoption and resource efficiency to reduce cost to serve without compromising service quality or control.

• Manage the operational contribution to monthly recurring revenue (MRR), service retention and delivery margins, working with Sales and Finance on service scope, costs and revenue leakage.

• Ensure accurate billable time, project labour and out-of-scope work records; coordinate operational inputs into billing, licence reconciliation and service commencement or termination.

4.7 Reporting, risk and compliance

• Present reliable dashboards covering SLAs, ticket trends, team productivity, project delivery, operational costs and risks; maintain data quality and clear metric definitions.

• Maintain an operational risk register and coordinate business continuity and disaster recovery readiness, including recovery procedures, ownership and testing.

• Ensure operational processes support applicable ECA / ICASA licence conditions, POPIA, RICA and health and safety requirements, with relevant compliance owners and advisers.

• Oversee operational security controls, including privileged access, MFA, joiner / mover / leaver processes, patch compliance and security remediation, through responsible engineers and specialists.

• Coordinate security incident response, audit evidence and remediation tracking; report unresolved control gaps and material risks to management.

5. SUCCESS MEASURES (FIRST 12 MONTHS)

Confirm service baselines and priorities with management in the first 30 days, and agree measurable targets and an improvement plan within 90 days. Progress will be reviewed against the following outcomes:

SLA achievement

Sustained attainment of agreed response and resolution targets, measured separately against contract commitments

Service quality

Reduced aged backlog, repeat incidents and avoidable escalations; improved first-time-fix and customer satisfaction

Project delivery

Delivery against agreed scope, dates and budgets, with controlled changes, client acceptance and complete support handovers

Team performance

Clear role KPIs, regular performance reviews, development plans and sufficient coverage; reduced dependence on individual staff

Process maturity

Existing Atlas, SOPs and change controls maintained, consistently applied and improved through service reviews

Visibility

Accurate, timely dashboards and management reporting, supported by reliable ticket, time and configuration records

Commercial performance

Delivery costs and margins tracked against approved targets; accurate billing inputs and reduced unbilled or out-of-scope work

Security and resilience

Agreed patch, access and backup controls monitored; restore tests completed and remediation actions tracked to closure

6. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

• Relevant bachelor’s degree or national diploma in IT, Information Systems, Engineering or Business Management, or equivalent demonstrated experience and relevant professional development.

• 8+ years’ experience in IT service delivery, MSP or ISP/telecoms operations, including at least 4 years leading multiple teams in an operations or management role.

• Proven leadership of outsourced IT or managed services delivery across multiple client environments, coordinating Support, Projects and Technical/field teams.

• Sound understanding of networking, connectivity, VoIP and hosting, together with Microsoft 365, cloud, endpoint management, cybersecurity and backup/recovery services.

• Demonstrated delivery improvements using KPIs, SLAs, management reporting and reliable operational data.

• Experience managing operational budgets, resource productivity, service margins, vendors and supplier contracts.

• Strong working knowledge of ITIL-aligned incident, problem and change management, with practical experience enforcing service processes.

• Practical experience with PSA, RMM and documentation platforms, including workflow discipline, data quality and reporting.

• Experience coordinating major incidents, client escalations and operational security controls through technical teams.

• Valid driver’s licence and own reliable transport.

Advantageous

• ITIL 4 Foundation or higher; PMP, PRINCE2 or Agile project management certification.

• Network certifications (e.g. CCNA, CCNP, MikroTik, Juniper) or equivalent hands-on depth.

• Additional experience in an ISP, WISP, telecoms, data centre or hosting environment, alongside managed IT service delivery.

• Postgraduate qualification or management development programme (e.g. MBA, PDBA).

• Experience with Autotask, IT Glue, VSA and the Kaseya ecosystem, or equivalent PSA, RMM and documentation platforms; exposure to automation and operational analytics.

7. PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

• Decisive, calm and credible in a crisis; able to manage multiple priorities under pressure.

• Strong leader who sets clear expectations, holds people accountable and earns respect.

• Excellent communicator, verbally and in writing, from technicians to executives and clients.

• Customer-centric, analytical and solutions-driven, with a continuous-improvement mindset.

• Highly organised and operationally involved, with the judgement to delegate technical execution and develop capable team leads.

• Commercially aware and collaborative, able to balance client requirements, team capacity, security and profitability.

8. TARGET CANDIDATE PROFILE AND SOURCING GUIDANCE

Prioritise candidates who have progressed from technical or service delivery roles into leadership of an MSP or outsourced IT operations function. Relevant sourcing pools include managed service providers, IT service companies and ISPs / telcos delivering managed IT services. Candidates must demonstrate the scale of teams and client environments managed, measurable SLA and delivery improvements, commercial accountability and effective use of operational systems.

9. REMUNERATION AND BENEFITS

Package

R65,000 – R85,000 per month cost-to-company (CTC), commensurate with experience, scope and track record

Variable pay

Performance-linked incentive to be confirmed at offer stage

Other

Supportive, fast-paced work environment; career growth and professional development, including certification support; exposure to cutting-edge network and IT technology

The approved budget will be assessed against relevant experience, leadership scope and demonstrated results. Candidates with strong managed services and ISP/telecoms operations experience may be considered at the upper end of the range.

10. PROCESS AND NEXT STEPS

• Please submit CVs together with current and expected remuneration, notice period and a short motivation for each candidate.

• Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed by Zinia management, followed by a scenario-based assessment covering service recovery, project/resource planning and commercial judgement, plus reference and qualification checks.

We look forward to working with you on this appointment. Please contact us should you require any further information.

Pay: R65 000,00 - R85 000,00 per month

Work Location: In person