Application Manager : Party Due Diligence

What will you do?

An exciting opportunity exists within Sanlam Group Technology (SGT) for an experienced Application Manager with strong Technical Lead capability to join the Application Platforms team, reporting to the SGT Executive Head: Application Platforms.

The Application Manager role is a role within the SGT Application Management structure and is specifically intended to bring technical oversight, operational stability and disciplined engineering practices to the applications being developed and supported.

The role combines end-to-end application ownership for the Group Party Due Diligences solution and hands-on technical leadership across a variety of modern engineering environments over time. The successful candidate will be responsible for the stability, performance, and evolution of a defined application portfolio, while driving engineering excellence, cloud adoption, and scalable system design across teams.

This individual will provide both tactical and operational leadership to ensure that applications are built and remain fit-for-purpose, cost-effective, compliant, and continuously improved within an Agile delivery environment.

What will make you successful in this role?

Application Portfolio Ownership

• Take ownership of a small portfolio of applications, including software development lifecycle management, FinOps, budgeting, cost recovery and performance monitoring.
• Ensure applications remain aligned with business needs, technology strategy, compliance and regulatory requirements.
• Develop and maintain application roadmaps (Functional & technical) in collaboration with business stakeholders and other technical role-players.
• Coordinate operations including upgrades, patches, and enhancements for both bespoke and vendor systems.
  
  

Technical Direction

• Align team deliverables with strategic technical decisions, ensuring scalable, high-quality solutions.
• Establish and maintain sound software engineering practices for bespoke applications (Including Coding standards, CI/CD, test automation, code reviews, documentation).
• Ensure the delivery of robust, maintainable code in a collaborative, cross-functional environment.
• Foster a DevSecOps culture within the team to ensure the delivery of robust, maintainable code in a collaborative, cross-functional environment.
• Introduce improvements in tooling, testing, deployment, and observability.
• Ensure all solutions adhere to Sanlam’s architectural and security standards.
• Drive system optimisation and performance improvements.
  
  

Leadership and Mentorship

• Lead and mentor a small multidisciplinary Agile delivery team.
• Foster team growth through coaching, cultivating top-tier engineering talent.
• Promote a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement, accountability, and continuous learning.
• Ensure capacity planning, resourcing, and succession planning for key roles.
  
  

Agile Delivery & Stakeholder Management

• Operate within an Agile framework, while being empowered to adapt or enhance delivery processes as needed.
• Facilitate effective collaboration between product owners, business stakeholders, and technical teams.
• Drive delivery predictability, transparency, and quality.
• Ensure incidents, defects, and enhancements are managed effectively and business value is optimised.
  
  

Governance, Risk, and Compliance

• Ensure compliance with IT policies, data protection standards, and regulatory requirements.
• Resolve critical compliance and audit gaps.
• Manage application risks, including technical debt, obsolescence, and security vulnerabilities.
• Prepare and present regular performance, risk, and roadmap reports to senior stakeholders.

Qualification

• Grade 12
• A relevant bachelor’s degree or diploma in Information Systems or Engineering.
• Leadership development interventions would be beneficial

Experience:

• 10+ Years of Software Development experience in general.
• 3+ Years proven experience in a technical leadership role would be recommended. (e.g., Tech Lead, Senior Engineer, or Architect)
• Proven track record of designing, building, and scaling distributed systems in cloud environments (AWS/Azure/GCP) would be beneficial
• Fintech/Insurtech experience would be beneficial

Knowledge:

• Significant understanding of Agile software development practices.
• Strong expertise in modern backend technologies (e.g., .NET, Java, Python, Node.js, Go) and frontend frameworks (React, Angular, or Vue)
• Experience with microservices, event-driven architectures, and API design (REST/gRPC/GraphQL)
• Hands-on with databases (SQL/NoSQL) and messaging systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ)
• Familiarity with DevOps practices (CI/CD, IaC, Kubernetes, Docker) and observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, Dynatrace)

Personal Attributes

Build a successful career with us

We’re all about building strong, lasting relationships with our employees. We know that you have hopes for your future – your career, your personal development and of achieving great things. We pride ourselves in helping  our employees to realise their worth. Through its five business clusters – Sanlam Fintech, Sanlam Life and Savings, Sanlam Investment Group, Sanlam Allianz, Santam, as well as MiWay and the Group Office – the group provides many opportunities for growth and development.

Core Competencies

Turnaround time

The shortlisting process will only start once the application due date has been reached. The time taken to complete this process will depend on how far you progress and the availability of managers. 

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