Description

The Disaster Recovery (DR) Specialist is accountable for designing, implementing, testing, and continuously improving Investec's disaster recovery capabilities across Prem and cloud platforms. The role ensures recovery strategies meet agreed Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), comply with regulatory expectations, and materially strengthen operational resilience. The DR Specialist works closely with application owners, infrastructure teams, cybersecurity, and business continuity to enable predictable and auditable recovery from disruptive events.

Key Responsibilities

•    Translate Business Impact Analysis (BIA) outcomes into technical recovery strategies and service level RTO/RPO targets.
•    Define and maintain DR architectures including active/active, active/passive, pilot light, and backup and restore models.
•    Ensure DR designs align with backup, replication, network, identity, and security controls.
•    Develop and maintain DR runbooks, failover playbooks, and recovery procedures.
•    Maintain dependency maps, sequencing logic, and rollback criteria.
•    Ensure DR documentation remains current following changes and releases.
•    Plan and execute DR tests including tabletop, component, application, and integrated failover exercises.
•    Validate test outcomes against RTO/RPO and document results.
•    Track remediation actions to closure and improve future test outcomes.
•    Identify DR capability gaps and drive continuous improvement initiatives.
•    Partner with Incident, Problem, and Change teams to embed recovery readiness.
•    Recommend resilience enhancements and automation opportunities.
•    Administer and optimise DR tooling including replication, orchestration, and recovery automation.
•    Implement health checks and dashboards for DR posture visibility.
•    Ensure CMDB and service mappings support accurate recovery sequencing.
•    Align DR capabilities with cyber resilience and ransomware recovery standards.
•    Validate immutable backups and secure recovery procedures.
•    Support clean room and isolated recovery approaches where required.
•    Maintain auditable DR artefacts and evidence.
•    Support internal and external audits.
•    Report on DR readiness, coverage, and risk exposure.
•    Engage application and platform owners on DR readiness and prioritisation.
•    Communicate test outcomes and risk insights to leadership.
•    Provide expert guidance during major incidents and recovery events.

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

•    5–8 years of IT experience, including 3+ years hands‑on experience delivering disaster recovery in complex enterprise environments.
•    Bachelor's degree in information technology, Computer Science, Information Systems, or an IT Diploma/NQF 6+ equivalent.
•    Strong understanding of recovery architectures, RTO/RPO modelling, and dependency mapping.
•    Experience planning, executing, and documenting DR tests.
•    Good understanding of ITIL processes and how they enable recovery readiness.
•    Strong documentation, communication, and stakeholder‑engagement skills.
•    Solid knowledge of on‑prem and cloud platforms (compute, storage, networking, replication technologies).
•    DR/BC certifications (CBCI, ISO 22301), ITIL certification, or cloud certifications.
•    Experience in financial services or regulated industries.
•    Knowledge of cyber resilient recovery patterns and automation.

Investec Culture 

At Investec we seek creative, talented people with passion, energy and stamina, who collaborate unselfishly.

We are committed to diversity and inclusion when recruiting internally and externally.