This is an in-office role

This position is based in Cape Town and is worked from our office. It is not a remote or hybrid role, so you'll need to be able to travel in every working day.

1-grid is a fast-growing web hosting company in Cape Town with an established customer base and a strong presence in the Internet services industry. We have the vision and resources to grow into a leading provider in South Africa, supported by an entrepreneurial culture that encourages innovation, collaboration and high performance.

Job Purpose

The Infrastructure & Data Centre Manager is a senior technical and operational leadership position responsible for the strategic and day-to-day management of 1-grid's infrastructure, data-centre operations and associated technical services. The role is accountable for ensuring that infrastructure is highly available, secure, scalable, cost-effective and aligned with business and customer requirements. The Manager will lead infrastructure strategy and architecture, data-centre capacity planning, network architecture, hardware procurement, infrastructure security, vendor management and technical teams. A key component of the role is the ability to understand complex customer requirements and translate them into reliable, secure and commercially viable customised infrastructure solutions while maintaining a premium customer experience.

Key Responsibilities

Infrastructure & Data Centre Strategy

Own the overall infrastructure and data-centre strategy for 1-grid.
Develop infrastructure roadmaps aligned with business growth and customer requirements.
Plan infrastructure capacity to support current and future hosting, colocation and customer requirements.
Establish infrastructure standards, architectures and technology principles.
Identify opportunities to improve reliability, scalability, performance and operational efficiency.
Evaluate emerging infrastructure technologies and make recommendations to management.

Data Centre Architecture

Design, develop and maintain data-centre architecture and infrastructure standards.
Plan and manage data-centre space, rack, power, cooling and connectivity requirements.
Ensure appropriate redundancy and resilience across critical infrastructure.
Apply appropriate availability models, including N+1 and 2N where required.
Oversee the physical deployment and configuration of servers, storage, networking and customer equipment.
Maintain accurate data-centre layouts, infrastructure diagrams, dependencies and documentation.
Plan infrastructure migrations, expansions, upgrades and decommissioning.

Data Network Architecture

Own the design and ongoing development of the company's data-network architecture.
Design scalable and resilient network solutions supporting hosting, customer and internal requirements.
Oversee network segmentation, routing, switching, connectivity and capacity planning.
Ensure network architecture supports performance, redundancy and security requirements.
Review and approve significant network changes and infrastructure designs.
Work with technical teams to resolve complex network and connectivity issues.

Network & Infrastructure Security

Develop and maintain infrastructure and network-security standards.
Ensure appropriate protection of servers, networks, firewalls and critical infrastructure.
Oversee network segmentation, access controls and security monitoring.
Identify infrastructure and network-security risks and ensure appropriate mitigation.
Ensure security considerations are incorporated into infrastructure architecture and customer solutions.
Support compliance with applicable security standards and internal security policies.
Oversee physical data-centre security and access controls.
Lead infrastructure-related security incident response where required.

Hardware Procurement & Asset Lifecycle

Own the procurement strategy for infrastructure and data-centre hardware.
Lead the selection and procurement of servers, storage, networking equipment, racks, PDUs, cabling and spare parts.
Evaluate technical specifications, quotations, vendors and total cost of ownership.
Negotiate with suppliers, OEMs, distributors and service providers.
Ensure procurement decisions align with architecture, capacity requirements and business forecasts.
Manage the complete hardware lifecycle from procurement through deployment, maintenance, refresh and secure disposal.
Maintain accurate infrastructure asset and inventory records.
Develop hardware standardisation strategies to improve reliability and control costs.

Customised Customer Solutions

Work with Sales, Customer Support and technical teams to understand complex customer requirements.
Design and recommend customised infrastructure and hosting solutions.
Develop solutions involving dedicated servers, colocation, networking, storage and other infrastructure services.
Ensure customised solutions are technically feasible, secure, scalable and commercially viable.
Participate in technical discussions with key and premium customers where required.
Provide technical guidance and solutions that support a high-quality customer experience.
Ensure customer-specific infrastructure is properly documented and supported.

Premium Client Experience

Take ownership of technical escalations involving key and premium customers.
Ensure infrastructure-related customer issues are handled professionally and efficiently.
Work closely with Customer Support and Sales to ensure technical commitments can be delivered.
Develop a customer-focused infrastructure culture within the technical team.
Identify opportunities to improve service reliability, responsiveness and customer experience.
Act as a senior technical representative of 1-grid when dealing with strategic customers.

Data Centre Operations

Manage daily data-centre operations to support 24/7/365 service availability.
Oversee critical infrastructure including power, cooling, fire suppression, racks, cabling and physical security.
Ensure compliance with uptime targets, SLAs and operational standards.
Establish and enforce SOPs, maintenance schedules and emergency-response procedures.
Coordinate infrastructure installations, migrations and decommissioning.
Ensure maintenance activities are properly planned and minimise customer impact.

Incident, Change & Problem Management

Act as the senior escalation point for critical infrastructure incidents and outages.
Lead technical response and recovery during major infrastructure incidents.
Coordinate root-cause analysis and post-incident reviews.
Implement preventative measures following significant incidents.
Oversee change-control processes for infrastructure and network changes.
Ensure high-risk changes are appropriately assessed, approved, documented and implemented.

Vendor & Stakeholder Management

Manage strategic relationships with hardware vendors, OEMs, distributors and infrastructure service providers.
Negotiate pricing, service levels and contractual requirements.
Monitor vendor performance against SLAs and contractual obligations.
Manage maintenance providers and data-centre contractors.
Work closely with Technology, Sales, Customer Support, Finance and Executive Management.
Represent infrastructure requirements in business and strategic planning discussions.

People Leadership

Lead, manage and develop infrastructure and data-centre personnel.
Establish clear responsibilities, performance expectations and technical standards.
Provide coaching, mentoring and technical direction.
Ensure appropriate staffing, shift coverage and on-call arrangements.
Build a culture of accountability, technical excellence, collaboration and customer focus.
Identify skills gaps and implement appropriate training and development.

Financial & Budget Management

Own the data-centre and infrastructure operational budget.
Contribute to CAPEX planning and long-term infrastructure investment decisions.
Forecast infrastructure and hardware expenditure based on business growth and refresh cycles.
Evaluate the financial impact and total cost of ownership of infrastructure decisions.
Identify opportunities to reduce costs without compromising reliability, security or customer experience.

Risk, Compliance & Business Continuity

Conduct regular infrastructure and data-centre risk assessments.
Develop and maintain appropriate mitigation plans.
Support business continuity and disaster-recovery planning.
Ensure infrastructure operations align with relevant regulatory, contractual and security requirements.
Support compliance with standards such as ISO 27001, SOC and PCI-DSS where applicable.
Ensure appropriate emergency-response and recovery procedures are maintained and tested.

Minimum Requirements

Qualifications

Diploma or Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering or a related discipline.
Relevant infrastructure, networking or data-centre certifications are advantageous.
Certifications such as CCNA/CCNP, CDCP, CDCS, ITIL or ISO 27001 are advantageous.

Experience

8-10+ years' experience in infrastructure, data-centre operations, hosting, networking or a related technical environment.
Proven experience in a senior infrastructure or data-centre management position.
Demonstrated experience designing or managing data-centre architecture.
Demonstrated experience with data-network architecture and infrastructure.
Proven experience managing infrastructure hardware procurement and vendor relationships.
Experience managing technical teams in a mission-critical environment.
Experience developing customised infrastructure solutions for customers.
Experience managing complex technical incidents and infrastructure projects.
Experience managing infrastructure budgets and CAPEX/OPEX expenditure.

Technical Knowledge & Skills

Data-centre architecture and design.
Data-network architecture.
Servers and server hardware.
Storage infrastructure.
Networking, routing and switching.
Firewalls and network security.
Virtualisation technologies.
Linux and Microsoft environments.
Hosting infrastructure and platforms.
Power, cooling and physical data-centre infrastructure.
Infrastructure redundancy and availability models, including N+1 and 2N.
Fibre and copper connectivity.
Capacity planning and infrastructure scalability.
Hardware lifecycle and asset management.
Infrastructure monitoring and troubleshooting.
Disaster recovery and business continuity.
Information and infrastructure security.
Technical procurement and vendor management.

Key Competencies

Strategic infrastructure planning.
Strong commercial and financial awareness.
Excellent technical decision-making.
Strong analytical and problem-solving ability.
Strong project and change-management capability.
Excellent vendor negotiation and stakeholder-management skills.
Strong written and verbal communication.
Ability to translate complex technical requirements into practical business solutions.
Strong customer-service orientation.
Ability to balance technical excellence, commercial requirements and customer expectations.
Calm and decisive under pressure.
Strong leadership and team-development capability.
Highly organised with excellent attention to detail.
Continuous-improvement mindset.

Key Performance Areas

Infrastructure availability and reliability.
Data-centre operational performance.
Network performance and resilience.
Infrastructure security.
Successful infrastructure projects and deployments.
Hardware procurement efficiency and cost management.
Infrastructure capacity planning.
Incident response and resolution.
Vendor performance.
Customer satisfaction and technical escalation management.
Infrastructure and data-centre risk management.
Team performance and development.
Compliance with infrastructure standards and procedures.

Values Alignment

The Infrastructure & Data Centre Manager is expected to demonstrate and promote our values: Accountability, Customer Centricity, Teamwork, Inclusivity, Respect, Transparency, Quality and Collaboration.

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