SOC Team Leader

Helios Towers is committed to promoting equal opportunities in employment. You and any job applicants will receive equal treatment regardless of age, disability, marital status, pregnancy or maternity, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief.

SOC Team Leader

Helios Towers is a leading independent telecommunications infrastructure company, having established one of the most extensive tower portfolios across Africa. It builds, owns and operates telecom passive infrastructure, providing services to mobile network operators. Helios Towers currently operates in 8 markets across Africa and Oman in the Middle East.

Overview

As SOC Team Leader within the Smart Operations Centre (SOC), you will lead real-time operational activities during your assigned shift, ensuring incidents are detected, validated, escalated, and driven to restoration in accordance with operational procedures and SLA commitments.

You will provide operational leadership to SOC Monitors, coordinating incident response, maintaining shift continuity, and ensuring high standards of execution, documentation, and communication throughout the incident lifecycle. Acting as the operational command lead during your shift, you will work closely with Maintenance Partners, the Energy Desk, SOC System Support, and Optimization Engineers to minimize service disruption and ensure timely restoration of critical telecom infrastructure.

Role Responsibilities

As SOC Team Leader, you will be responsible for:

• Leading real-time monitoring and incident command activities throughout the shift by validating alarms, correlating events, classifying incident severity, and ensuring timely operational response using ICCP and associated operational platforms.
• Supervising SOC Monitors by ensuring consistent alarm handling, ticket and work order creation, escalation discipline, documentation quality, and providing coaching to strengthen operational performance.
• Monitoring incident-level SLA timers and validating escalation thresholds to ensure response and restoration activities are initiated within agreed service commitments while filtering false-positive alarms.
• Coordinating restoration activities with Maintenance Partners, the Energy Desk, and operational support teams to ensure incidents progress efficiently to resolution, escalating delays, recurring failures, and complex technical issues to Optimization Engineers (L3) and the SOC Manager where appropriate.
• Managing structured shift handovers by ensuring open incidents, operational risks, pending actions, SLA-critical events, and ownership responsibilities are clearly documented and effectively transferred between shifts.
• Maintaining accurate operational dashboards, incident logs, and real-time reporting to provide clear operational visibility and support informed decision-making throughout the shift.
• Applying the operational escalation matrix consistently during major incidents and service-impacting events, ensuring escalations are timely, factual, and aligned with established operational procedures.
• Coordinating site access requests during non-office hours by validating approvals, maintaining complete access records, and ensuring all activities remain fully traceable.
• Serving as the operational point of contact for Mobile Network Operator (MNO) NOCs during assigned shifts by communicating factual incident status updates while directing SLA discussions and customer governance matters to the CSOC team.
• Ensuring complete and accurate ICCP and WFM documentation for incidents, operational tasks, escalation activities, and incident closure records.

Requirements for the Role

To succeed in the role, you will be/will have:

• Bachelor's degree or diploma in Telecommunications, Electrical Engineering, Information Technology, Network Operations, or a related technical discipline.
• Minimum of 3–5 years' experience within a Network Operations Centre (NOC), Smart Operations Centre (SOC), Technical Operations Centre, or similar operational environment.
• Previous experience leading operational teams, coordinating shifts, or supervising technical operators in a 24/7 operational environment.
• Strong understanding of incident management processes, alarm management, escalation procedures, and SLA-driven operations.
• Experience using operational monitoring platforms such as ICCP, WFM, NMS, RMS, or equivalent operational systems.
• Proven ability to coordinate multiple stakeholders during operational incidents while maintaining service continuity.
• Experience working within telecommunications, tower infrastructure, utilities, or mission-critical operational environments.

Desired Skills

• Strong operational leadership and decision-making capability.
• Excellent incident management and coordination skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving ability.
• High attention to detail and documentation accuracy.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to perform effectively under pressure in a fast-paced operational environment.
• Strong organisational and shift coordination capability.
• Sound understanding of SLA management and operational governance.
• Digital proficiency with ICCP, WFM, operational dashboards, and monitoring platforms.

Key Deliverables

• Correctly validated, prioritised, and escalated incidents managed through to restoration.
• Accurate alarm correlation, incident tracking, and SLA monitoring records.
• Complete and structured shift handover documentation with clear ownership and follow-up actions.
• Timely operational status updates and escalation logs for internal stakeholders.
• Accurate ICCP and WFM documentation supporting incident management and operational traceability.
• Effective coordination of restoration activities and operational escalations during assigned shifts.

KPIs

• Incident response time.
• Mean Time to Restore (MTTR).
• Shift handover quality and continuity (no dropped or stalled incidents).
• On-shift SLA timer compliance.
• Escalation timeliness and operational effectiveness.
• Documentation accuracy and data quality.
• Alarm validation and correlation accuracy.
• Incident restoration performance during assigned shifts.