Lead Application Developer at GVA Partners

Job Summary

• Our organisation services the largest economy in Africa, and is championing the development of Africa’s financial markets. We offer listing and trading services, licensing services, market data solutions, ancillary technology services, and more. It is an open, professional and vibrant company, connecting Nigeria, Africa and the world.
• The Applications Delivery Lead reports to the Head, Technology Services and is responsible for the development and delivery of The Exchange’s technical application requirements and its associated service delivery. The incumbent will possess a proven track record in designing, building and supporting a word class applications services in a secure manner with sound functionality, high usability and maximum uptime and in line with ITIL principles.
• The successful candidate will have a solid technical background and will be very technically ‘on the ball’ with the ability to get ‘hands-on’ where required, but also able to manage a team of applications developers, DBAs, analysts and testers based on robust processes and communicate effectively at senior management levels to explain technical issues. The incumbent will be strategically minded, with ability to identify new/emerging technology options and have robust technical project delivery skills to deliver complex and highly visible technology change projects and would have gained experience ideally across several locations/geographies and within Emerging Markets operations of the Financial Services sector.
• This is a high profile opportunity to use your skills in transforming a leading Emerging Markets company and positioning it for growth and leadership within its region using technology as a competitive and business transformational tool.

Responsibilities

• Drive the formulation of the applications strategy. Lead its execution, working in close collaboration with both internal and external stakeholders
• Build, retain and motivate a best in class applications delivery team across all the main development disciplines and oversee associated changes
• Ensure the Exchange operates a high availability, robust and high permanent applications services, visible to both internal and external stakeholders
• Establish technical standards that will ensure a highly available and secure technology environment. Ensure adherence to the standards
• Work with external stakeholders to establish appropriate industry wide standards to leverage STP initiatives
• Develop processes to ensure that agreed SLAs are met
• Identify and manage strategic supplier relationships to augment internal and strategic capabilities, whilst ensuring a high level of service delivery
• Provide strong leadership skills, ensuring the highest standards of governance, deliverables, risk and stakeholder management
• Manage and deliver the applications services in line with global best practices based on SDLC
• Be accountable for the delivery of all applications services (BAU) and outcomes for all applications changes run by the Market Operations and Technology division
• Provide E2E technology integration from clients to brokers, trading, clearing, settlements and clearing, including risk surveillance
• Ensure appropriate technologies to re-engineer the business processes are identified, implemented and maintained
• Generate a comprehensive resource plan for the applications development and delivery unit to identify appropriate resources (internal and external) that will be essential to achieve delivery objectives. Drive the secondment of these resources to ensure timely and quality delivery
• Monitor project/programme timelines, milestones, budget and resource usage to ensure delivery to plan and budget. Pro-actively manage deviations
• Produce monthly executive management applications services report detailing service delivery against benchmark, budgets, quality, deviations from plan and risks for management attention
• Manage and deploy available funds and resources efficiently
• Ensure that all disaster recovery related applications services and associated dependent infrastructures are up to date and will support the business in the unlikely event of an invocation. Ensure that these are tested regularly in line with the plan
• Continually train and coach other team members to become self-sufficient.

Desired Competency and Skills Requirement

• The Applications Development Lead will be expected to have aptitudes, skills, knowledge and experience on the following areas:
• Hands-on current and deep expertise in at least four technical disciplines (e.g., two programming languages database development and query tools, structured software development methodology, software quality assurance, networks, operating system)

Business case development:

• Ability to develop detailed and succinct functional and technical specification documents
• Ability to interpret technology and market trends as a foundation for technology roadmaps
• Strong hands-on knowledge of large scale software quality assurance process
• Technical Programme and Project Management
• Strong knowledge of information security principles and application
• Strong governance exposure
• Technical Production Support
• Exposure to working in an ITIL compliant environment
• Ability to work with and influence senior executives
• Financial management
• Quality management
• Risk management
• Knowledge management
• Supplier management
• Entrepreneurially minded
• Pro-activeness in addressing any service / quality issues and deviations from plan
• Technology Architecture. Experience within Exchanges/Financial Services sector will be a distinct advantage
• Market data services experience will be a distinct advantage.

Freedom to Act:

• The Applications Delivery Lead has considerable freedom to act in order to deliver services required for the provision of an efficient and effective operation. He/She will be expected to work to a high level of technical standard, accuracy and lead by example,
• Definition, management and ownership of approved unit budgets
• Ability to deal with uncertain business and technology objectives.
• Manage and be accountable for dependencies, exceptions, slippage, issues and priorities
• Manage and be accountable for the management of risk and opportunities including the development of contingency plans.
• Manage issues and change.

Problem Solving:

• The Applications Delivery Lead will be expected to plan delivery of appropriate services and solutions to meet overall service office objectives often against tight time, financial or resource constraints. To achieve this, the incumbent will need to:
• Have the ability to think logically, analyse situations and lead diverse teams in complex problem solving
• Ensure all changes are well tested and managed in a controlled manner with full rollback plans
• Work with stakeholders and suppliers to develop strategic solution options, resourcing options and delivery plans.

Communicating with Others:
The Applications Delivery Lead will be expected to have excellent communication skills and experience in working with sponsors and other members of the business. The following points illustrate this:

• Communication and visibility of all critical issues and their status and service restore plans
• Define team member roles and expectations, and ensure timely feedback
• Communicate the technology vision and service improvement plans to internal and external stakeholders.

Leadership:
The incumbent will need to be an effective leader to create effective, informed and highly motivated team(s) focused on delivery. They will need to:

• Set overall direction for the team
• Monitor and maintain team morale
• Ensure the coherence of the service, technical project(s), dependencies and conflicts and develop and maintain the appropriate environment to support all areas involved in the delivery.
• Influence, inspire and lead cross functional project teams
• Be an advocate for the wider adoption of technology both internally and externally
• Lead transformational technology initiatives
• People Management and Development
• The incumbent will need good people skills including
• Define and scope the resource requirements for the formation of the programme team.
• The ability to create clarity of roles and responsibilities for members of the team.
• Build and maintain relationships with the overall team, Business team(s) and stakeholders.
• Manage conflicts and dependencies across teams and wider stakeholder group
• Coach, mentor, appraise and develop managers and team members.

Financial Control:
The incumbent will be expected to budget for their department and maintain monitoring and management of spend. This will cover the following activities:

• Development of a robust business case for the programme(s) and re-forecast value creation where necessary
• Facilitate a process for ensuring regular tracking and management of costs against budget
• Review of cost anomalies or over-spend upward within the service and line management in a timely fashion
• Negotiate optimum prices with suppliers whilst ensuring sound service levels.

Job Specification

• Minimum of 10 years cognate experience
• B.Sc Degree in Computer Science, Engineering discipline, Mathematics or Physics will be a distinct advantage
• Solid technical track record in developing and supporting applications within the financial services sector is essential
• Market Data Services experience will be a distinct advantage
• Experience on at least four core technical disciplines (e.g., C#, Java, MS SQL Server, .NET Framework, structured development and QA methodologies, networking, OS, etc.,) at a ‘hands-on’ level is essential
• Experience with managing team of technical experts in a business critical service environment
• Training on ITIL and experience in working in an ITIL based environment will be a distinct advantage
• Technical certifications in software development to a high degree of proficiency
• Experience in leading large technical teams and implementation programmes (>$500K) will be an advantage
• Ability to demonstrate a track record of delivering complex business critical change
• Experience in managing/working with senior stakeholders at CTx/Exec level will be a distinct advantage.

Additional Comments

• KPIs
• Timely delivery of projects
• Quality of delivered solutions measured by stability, bugs and incidents
• SLAs for incident and problem resolution
• Service availability for Tier 1 service (starting point)
• Budget compliance
• Regular and effective communication of deliverables and key issues, and tracking to stakeholders (monthly executive report)
• Effective conflict resolution
• Build and manage credibility with stakeholders and delivery team
• Develop and build team.