Infrastructure Engineer

CAREER OPPORUNITY

Santam’s Guidewire BI DataHub team is looking for an Infrastructure Engineer. 

JOB DESCRIPTION

• Santam’s Shared Technology Services (STS) BI DataHub Team is seeking an Infrastructure Engineer with a strong background in on-prem infrastructure, DevOps, and system administration.
• The role focuses on maintaining and optimising the on-premise instances of Guidewire DataHub and InfoCenter, which provide Business Intelligence (BI) capabilities across the organisation.
• The Infrastructure Engineer will be responsible for infrastructure setup, support, maintenance, security, and disaster recovery (DR). The position requires close collaboration with Santam and Sanlam stakeholders.
   

PRINCIPLE ACCOUNTABILITIES

Infrastructure & System Administration

• Maintain and support the on-premise infrastructure for Guidewire DataHub & InfoCenter.
• Manage server provisioning, patching, upgrades, and decommissioning.
• resource allocation (CPU, Memory, Disk I/O) across environments.
• Set up and configure Windows servers, databases, SAP Data Services, Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, and other applications as needed by developers.
• Setup Active Directory and LDAP integrations.
• Implement and maintain backups, failover mechanisms, and disaster recovery (DR) plans. Show high availability, proof of infrastructure down and new environment up, prepare documents, test plans, report on findings, and provide audit support. Log exclusions (not covered during DR tests).

Security, Compliance & Risk Management

• Identify and manage vulnerabilities and patches. CVE, patch, also vulnerabilities (LOW-CRITICAL). Weekly prod and non-prod patching.
• Manage role-based access control (RBAC), Privileged Access Management (PAM), and Identity & Access Management (IAM) solutions.
• Enforce compliance with IT security policies, including data protection, encryption, and firewall configurations.
• Respond to regular security audits and do patch management to safeguard infrastructure.

Monitoring & Performance Optimisation

• Implement and manage monitoring solutions to track infrastructure performance, uptime, and health.
• Set up alerting mechanisms to detect and resolve system issues proactively.
• Troubleshoot and resolve hardware, software, and networking issues across environments.
• Improve logging and observability for proactive issue resolution.

Support & Collaboration

• Provide technical support for developers, data engineers, and business users leveraging DataHub & InfoCenter.
• Manage VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) environments, ensuring seamless developer access.
• Collaborate with database administrators (DBAs), cloud teams, and network engineers to improve system stability.
• Work with stakeholders to resolve their queries (VDI, infrastructure, software requirements). Requirements analysis.
• Participate in incident response, requests (emergency changes, fixes, patches, troubleshooting), root cause analysis (RCA), and post-mortem reviews.
• Change management (attend CAB meetings for weekly changes, know about what other teams are doing to evaluate impact). Follow procedures, be curious, and question assumptions.
   

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• National Diploma / Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Informatics, Information Systems, Information Technology, Engineering or another quantitative field preferred
• Minimum of 3 - 5 years experience within the Infrastructure environment.
• Strong experience with Windows server administration.
• Strong experience in disaster recovery (DR) planning and implementation.
• Strong knowledge of security best practices, including PAM, IAM, and vulnerability management.
• Good understanding of virtualisation, networking, and storage.
• Knowledge of monitoring tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, Nagios, or similar.
• Exposure IBM Cognos, QlikView, QlikSense and PowerBI is beneficial.
• Exposure with BI data warehouse platforms is a plus.
   

KNOWLEDGE

• Familiarity with monitoring tools and the management thereof.
• Good understanding of complex IT environments, network infrastructure such as load balancers, network proxies, etc.
• Good understanding of information security and how it impacts applications, users and the broader IT environment.
• Solid knowledge in data management.
• Knowledge of Active Directory and LDAP.

COMPETENCIES

• Competent in problem solving and troubleshooting at application and networked infrastructure levels.
• Stakeholder management as it relates to business and technical users at different levels in the organisation.
• Research and presentation skills.
• Must be able to work in a team focused highly pressurised and dynamic environment.
• Investigation and analysis of information.
• Planning and organisation.
• Communication of technical guidance and instruction to team members.
• Ability to write technical instructions in the use of programs and / or program modifications.
• Ability to accept accountability for actions and decisions.