Role purpose:

The Manager – Charging & Mediation shall be responsible for providing technical and team leadership in planning & delivery for the Rating & charging ecosystem, including related platforms voucher managements, mediations & monitoring tools. The role will entail planning, software release management, capacity management, architecture design and budgeting (CAPEX &OPEX), as well as articulating technical proposals for development and implementation for all Charging, Billing Products & Services offered to Safaricom customers in line with IT strategy plan.

In addition, the role focuses on systems planning, overseeing development and implementation, network integration/expansion and roll-out of the Products and Services and to create a high value productivity and availability within Safaricom Ethiopia in support of the Customer Systems and Billing business strategy, and to maintain high standards of service quality and reliability within the charging and mediation function.

This role will be required to lead, manage, and mentor a team of Support Engineers / Analysts and/or charging Specialists across the Support team, ensuring that systems and roadmaps are aligned to the company strategy and operational KPIs are met.

Key Accountabilities and Decision Ownership:

·         Lead & provide technical expertise in product/service configurations, planning and design for Rating & Charging Solution (CCS), Mediation & Voucher Management & other systems in the ecosystem.

·         Lead, participate and provide professional expertise in defining strategy, roadmaps, architecture design and evolution on applicable technologies.

·         Capacity Management: Lead the team in ensuring adequate IT Capacity to meet required levels of service and advise on how to match Capacity and demand. Ensure that use of existing Capacity is optimized.

·         Lead & drive integrations of Rating & Charging Solution & other system solutions in the portfolio to IT Stack and various network elements.

·         Timely delivery of project plans and architecture designs with the goal of ensuring high quality standards are met and solutions are operationally viable.

·         Lead the team in optimal resource scheduling and allocation for timely delivery.

·         Research and development: Take leadership in research and development including adoption of new ways of managing integration, development, and delivery.

·         Financial planning: Providing input towards effective financial planning for both CAPEX and OPEX with the goal of delivering cost efficiency in the domain.

·         3rd line Support technical and team leadership: Lead the team in the defined domain areas in ensuring all related services and products are operationally optimal. This includes supporting 2nd line support when needed, problem resolution and bug fixing for already deployed solutions as per ITIL & ISO guidelines.

·         Build the skillset according to the fit for future program and ensure adoption of new technologies and methodologies in the team – Agile-Scrum etc.

·         Team Management – Manage a team of support engineers including vendor resources to ensure timely resolution of tickets, system availability and workload management across the team.

·         Enhance processes and DevOps to improve delivery and increase efficiency by focusing on continuous improvement and optimization.

 Job Requirements

Core competencies, knowledge, and experience:

Business Competencies:

·         Profiency in Charging & Billing Solutions.

·         Technical analysis and solution design,Development and implementation for all Billing Products & Services

·         Customer Obsession – understands the value of profitable customers. Listening to and understanding customer needs. Delivering outstanding customer service

·         Technical analysis and solution design, Development and implementation for all BSS Systems

Creativity and Innovation

·         Fulfilment of business requiremenst throgh Innovative solutioning, and creative use of appropriate technologies and system capabilities to ensure that business and technical requirements are met in accordance with timelines, Quality and user experience in line with best practice.

Business Know how

·         Excellent communication skills - must be able to listen to customers, document requirements quickly & accurately, and review written materials for accuracy. Must also be able to communicate specifications to persons at all technical levels.

Working with Change

·         Ability to drive initiatives without any formal authority in an ambiguous and startup environment.

System Support

·         Excellent troubleshooting skills and able to communicate technical issues clearly and in easy-to-understand language.

Functional Competencies:

·         Domain experience in GSM is a must with a bias towards CCS, Mediation, Voucher Management, Provisioning, Roaming, Interconnect, Invoicing.

·         Working knowledge on cloud Native, TCP, CNF & VNF solutions.

·         Deep understanding of 3GPP protocols and API interfaces (REST, SOAP).

Must have technical / professional qualifications:

·         BSc. Degree in Telecommunication Engineering/Electrical & Electronics engineering/Computer Science/IT.

·         7+ years’ experience in IT / telecommunication environment or Software Engineering with good knowledge in supporting BSS Solutions such as CRM, Billing, SDP, product configurator and Sales lead

·         Experience on development in Java

·         Experience with REST API and microservices development

·         Strong understanding of virtualization and container infrastructure technology

·         Knowledge of Distributed Systems, analytics tools such and Python, Standard Query languages, Procedural Programming languages, Linux/Unix, Shell scripting

·         Experience with JavaScript, JSON, XSLT, XML

·         Prior Experience in GSM and charging platforms is a must

Desired

·         Working knowledge in Unix/Linux systems and Databases – Oracle, MySQL, Postgres.

·         Scripting skills.

·         Working knowledge with Virtualized/cloud/cloud Native solutions

Financial Responsibility:

·         Partake in RFP to realize cost effective solutions.

·         Timeous acceptance of solutions to enable timeous receipting by vendors.

·         Management of OPEX budget for Billing Operations.

How to Apply

If you feel that you are up to the challenge and possess the necessary qualification and experience, kindly proceed to update your candidate profile on the career portal and then Click on the apply button using THIS LINK. Remember to attach your resume.

The closing date for receiving applications is Thursday October 10,2024