Moira Davids

Strategic and results-oriented Team Lead of Cloud Engineering at Africa's largest retailer, with a decade of expertise in cloud infrastructure and a 5-year tenure in technical management, managing multi-disciplinary teams and complex multi-cloud environments (AWS, GCP, and Azure). Proven track record in executing large-scale migrations, implementing operational standards and enterprise security frameworks, and driving an Infrastructure as Code culture. Proficient in aligning cloud strategy with business goals and ensuring cloud solutions are fit for purpose.

Passionate about the human element of technology, with a focus on mentorship, career development, and building resilient team cultures. Adept at removing organizational friction and fostering high-trust environments to deliver robust cloud solutions. Committed to technical excellence through the growth and empowerment of people.

Cloud Engineering Lead and Cloud Engineer - Shoprite Checkers - Cape Town, South Africa

(2013-12)

• Manage complex enterprise workloads across multiple clouds (AWS, GCP, and Azure), ensuring alignment with platform-specific best practices, security and vulnerability best practices, architectural standards, and business requirements.
• Implement and maintain availability, scalability, and proactive monitoring of global infrastructure to guarantee 24/7 uptime for high-volume retail operations and e-commerce platforms.
• Enforce a 'Security by Design' culture, enabling development teams to innovate at speed while maintaining governance and compliance.
• Oversee BAU operations and incident management, consistently meeting SLA targets while managing weekly standby rotations and project reporting.
• Manage Disaster Recovery (DR) trials and cross-functional simulations to ensure business continuity and adhere to systems-specific RTOs/RPOs.
• Present strategic roadmaps to Executive Steering Committees, aligning cloud initiatives with core business directives.
• Tailor FinOps approaches that simplify cloud cost allocation without compromising performance or innovation.
• Provide strategic guidance, and deploy services and infrastructure required to accelerate the organization's AI development and enterprise onboarding.
• Govern CI/CD practices and ensure standards are implemented across all clouds.
• Act as an architecture and solution advisory for development teams when designing their cloud systems to help remain within the well-architected framework from project initiation to closing.

Infrastructure Manager & Team Lead - Open Box Software - Cape Town, South Africa

(2010-09 - 2013-11)

• Led a data center modernisation project to migrate physical servers to a HyperV environment integrated with IBM SAN storage.
• Set up a remote "Hot Site" Disaster Recovery facility using Microsoft DPM, and installed a wireless link, ensuring full failover capability and minimal disruption continuity.
• Engineered server clustering and Network Load Balancing (NLB) for critical IIS and SQL production environments to maximise uptime.
• Was responsible for the enterprise transition from legacy Diginet to high-speed Fibre, significantly enhancing site performance and bandwidth.
• Strengthened domain security through Cisco IOS Access Control Lists (ACLs) and Microsoft Threat Management Gateway deployment.
• Upgraded Active Directory and Primary Domain Services from Windows Server 2008 R2 to 2012.
• Aligned annual IT budgets and multi-year infrastructure roadmaps with core business delivery objectives.
• Automated software lifecycle management via WDS/WSUS and mentored technical teams to streamline complex service delivery.

IT Manager - The Jupiter Drawing Room - Cape Town, South Africa

(2003-06 - 2010-08)

• Modernized the systems landscape by leading a workstation refresh (Mac/PC) and transitioning legacy NT4 systems to Active Directory.
• Directed CAPEX forecasting, budgeting, and inventory auditing to support a large-scale office expansion and the setup of a Johannesburg-based branch.
• Designed and deployed a WAN between Cape Town and Johannesburg, utilizing Diginet links, ISA Server, and site caching (Juniper devices) for optimized regional connectivity.
• Led a technical team in a high-pressure advertising environment, managing BAU support across a multi-platform environment (PC and Mac), workflow prioritization, and change management processes.
• Implemented Exchange failover clusters (2003/2007) and mail server redundancy to eliminate downtime for critical communications.
• Improved Disaster Recovery protocols through comprehensive backup management, UPS infrastructure, and ISA firewall hardening.
• Negotiated SLAs and managed supplier relationships with ISPs and other ICT entities.
• Implemented one of the first instances of cross-platform integration for Windows and macOS (Mac Server) in Cape Town.
• Supported specialized AV equipment and digital video editing suites.

Systems & Network Administrator - Intouch Wireless (iTouch TAS) - Cape Town, South Africa

(2001-03 - 2002-09)

• Managed high-volume mail environments utilizing Exim on FreeBSD, overseeing LDAP-integrated user accounts and automated mailing list administration via Mailman.
• Provisioned core network services and managed DNS and DHCP on FreeBSD name servers.
• Developed technical support documentation for WebSMS products involving Sybase, IBM WebSphere, and LDAP configuration for Free-BSD based systems.
• Designed and built blade server hardware and optimized hardware performance.
• Responsible for physical network deployments and managing end-to-end infrastructure support, including switch patching, cabling, and digital telephony.
• Managed centralized antivirus updates and patching.
• Responsible for resolving technical issues through the RT (Request Tracker) ticketing system.

System Engineer - BWCC Computers (IT Solutions) - Cape Town, South Africa

(2000-03 - 2000-11)

• Executed end-to-end hardware lifecycles, including custom construction, upgrading, and advanced troubleshooting of enterprise PC systems.
• Custom construction, upgrading, and troubleshooting of PC systems.
• Physical network installations, overseeing the deployment of cabling, wiring, network points, and switches for client environments.
• Comprehensive software and hardware support for diverse user bases.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Cloud Architecture

AWS Security Specialty - Cloud Security

Dip IS Project Management - Project Management

CompTIA Security+ Plus - Information Security