TechOps Lead

As Hozah's TechOps Lead, you will own our Technical Operations function end-to-end in a player-manager capacity, splitting your time equally between leading the TechOps function & engineers, and getting hands-on supporting our tech platforms. That means setting the standards for how technical issues are diagnosed and resolved, while also serving as the escalation point when something can't be fixed at the first level.

Your team is the technical authority across the estate who are responsible for diagnosing and resolving issues whether, for example, a camera goes offline, a site stops generating enforcement data or a network goes down. You will work alongside our Estate Manager, who owns the physical estate, contractor relationships, and client communication, as their technical counterpart.

We appreciate that there may some domain specific knowledge that you might not have. Rest assured that any training will be provided., Function and Team Leadership

• Line manage the TechOps engineers, including setting expectations, running regular 1:1s, conducting performance reviews, and holding the team accountable for the quality and speed of their work.
• Define and document diagnostic workflows, escalation procedures, runbooks, and SOPs so that issues are resolved consistently and any member of the team can follow a clear resolution path.
• Own the Jira Cloud Service Desk ticket pipeline across the team, ensuring proper logging, categorisation, prioritisation, and root-cause documentation as standard practice.
• Identify skills gaps in the team and provide mentorship, training, and hands-on guidance to improve overall capability.
• Report on TechOps performance to the COO, covering uptime, resolution times, recurring issues, and improvement initiatives.
• Oversee internal helpdesk support and Microsoft 365 administration, alongside our Managed Service Provider.

Monitoring and Device Management

• Own and improve the monitoring, alerting, and device management platforms, using data such as camera uptime, enforcement volumes, and connectivity trends to spot degradation before it becomes an incident.
• Lead configuration, deployment, and lifecycle management of devices including ANPR cameras, payment kiosks, tablets, and networking hardware (using relevant third parties where necessary)
• Drive preventative maintenance strategies across the estate to reduce the volume of reactive work over time.
• Lead root-cause analysis on recurring or high-impact issues, producing post incident reports that drive systemic fixes.
• Ensure the team maintains accurate inventory records for all devices, spares, and networking equipment, and that device compliance and security policy requirements are met across the estate.

Infrastructure and Network

• Own the network infrastructure across all sites, including routers, VPNs, port forwarding and IP.
• Standardise network configurations, maintain deployment templates, and keep configuration records and network diagrams up to date so that the estate is well documented and new deployments are consistent.
• Troubleshoot end to end enforcement workflows covering the full chain from ANPR camera through to network, backend platform, contravention generation, PCN issuance, payment, and reporting.
• Act as the escalation point for complex hardware, software and network issues.
• Evaluate and recommend infrastructure changes, whether that is hardware, vendors, architecture or tooling.

New Site Onboarding (Technical Consultant)

• Act as the internal technical consultant for complex new site installations, including covering network design, hardware specification, camera placement, remote commissioning and system configuration.
• Provide technical direction to contractors via the Estate Manager where on-site work is required.

Working Relationships

• Estate Manager: They look after the physical estate, contractor management, cost tracking and client communication, while you cover the technical side. In practice this means you are their go to escalation for anything technical and when the line between physical and digital is blurry, you will typically diagnose first and route from there.
• Onboarding Project Manager: They coordinate the overall new site install and gather the sites requirements. Where sites have complex requirements or existing infrastructure, you will provide the technical specs/requirements, making sure the technology is specified, configured and tested correctly before handover.
• COO: Your line manager but also technical partner (previous experience within an MSP). You'll bring technical ownership and operational insight, performance data and infrastructure recommendations whereas they own strategic decisions, budget approval, and cross-functional priorities.

Do you have experience in VPN?, * 6+ years in IT support, infrastructure/network engineering, field engineering or technical operations.

• Experience managing or leading a small technical team including actual line management responsibility rather than informal mentoring.
• Experience managing & supporting devices distributed across multiple geographic locations.
• Experience supporting ANPR, CCTV, IoT or similar physical infrastructure is highly desirable.
• A demonstrated ability to set standards and hold a team to them.

Must-Have Technical Skills

• Broad networking knowledge covering IP networking, subnetting, VLANs, VPNs, DHCP, DNS and firewall rules.
• Experience configuring and troubleshooting routers, switches, and firewalls.
• Ability to perform structured root-cause analysis.
• Experience with remote device management and monitoring tools.
• Comfortable working with CLI, SSH, and remote diagnostics.
• Strong documentation discipline.
• Understanding of endpoint security and device compliance.
• Microsoft 365 administration.

Desirable Knowledge

• ANPR systems and camera configuration.
• IP CCTV setup and troubleshooting.
• Raspberry Pi or edge device configuration.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (GCP is desirable), APIs, and data pipelines.
• Experience with BigQuery or similar data tools for operational analysis.
• Jira Cloud administration and workflow configuration.
• ITIL certified

Skills

• An ownership mindset. When you see a problem, you fix it, make sure someone does or raise the risks of not fixing it.
• A confident decision maker who does not wait to be told what to do.
• A clear communicator with both technical and non-technical colleagues.
• Calm and structured under pressure in live operational environments.
• Highly organised, with the ability to manage a team, a ticket queue, and your own technical workload simultaneously.
• Proactive. You would rather prevent an outage than heroically fix one., * Are you able to work onsite/commute easily to East Croydon two/three days per week?
• Are you legally eligible to work in the UK without requiring sponsorship?
• Have you previously held formal line-management responsibility for a technical team?
• How many years of experience do you have in IT support, infrastructure/network engineering, field engineering, or technical operations?
• Have you configured or troubleshot routers, switches or firewalls in a production environment? Yes/No - If yes, please provide a brief example.
• Do you have experience working with VPNs, VLANs, IP networking, DNS, DHCP or firewall rules?

Yes/No - If yes, please specify which areas you have hands-on experience with.

• Do you have experience using monitoring or remote device management tools?

Yes/No - If yes, please name the tools.

• Do you have hands-on experience with CCTV, ANPR, IoT devices, or other distributed hardware?

Yes/No - If yes, please describe your experience.

• Have you worked with Jira Service Desk or another ticketing system?

Yes/No - Please specify which system(s).

• Do you have any experience with cloud platforms (e.g., GCP, AWS, Azure), APIs, or data pipelines?

• Competitive salary & benefits
• Hybrid working (mix of office and remote)
• Opportunities for professional development, training, and creative ownership
• A collaborative, supportive environment that values creativity and innovation
• A role where your work contributes meaningfully to shaping the future of urban mobility
• Friendly office environment, including two office dogs!

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Pay: £50,000.00-£60,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Company events
• Discounted or free food
• On-site parking
• Transport links

Hozah is a tech-led, award-winning company driving change in the parking industry and reimagining urban mobility. Our mission is simple but powerful: to transform parking into a seamless, automated experience, paving the way for smarter, more sustainable cities. With recent recognition as PayTech Company of the Year, a place among Deloitte's Top 50 Fastest Growing Tech Companies in the UK, and significant VC/PE investment, we're scaling rapidly and need a TechOps Lead to own our technical operations function as we grow.