Peter Jackson
Principal Solutions Architect
Johannesburg
Overview
8
8
Certificates
25
25
years of professional experience
Summary
Dynamic Principal Solutions Architect with a proven track record at Multichoice, achieving a 50% reduction in cloud costs through innovative cloud solution design and strategic stakeholder collaboration. Expert in serverless architecture and event-driven workloads, driving enhanced system performance and fostering cross-team collaboration for successful project execution.
Work History
Principal Solutions Architect
Multichoice - Digital Enablement
06.2025 - Current
- Managed a 50% cost reduction in cloud costs.
- Championed cloud-based technologies adoption for increased flexibility and scalability in IT infrastructure.
- Full serverless stack on the SuperSport digital products.
- Transitioned to a multi-CDN architecture for cost efficiencies and redundancy.
- Worked on a WhatsApp modernization project.
- Enhanced system performance by optimizing and implementing event driven workloads.
- Fostered collaboration between engineering teams by establishing clear communication channels and promoting knowledge sharing.
- Managed the E2E SuperSport site and app revamp project.
Senior Solutions Architect
Multichoice - Group Digital
06.2022 - 05.2024
- Established cohesive relationships with clients, translating their needs into actionable technical specifications for successful project execution.
- Collaborated on a number of cross division projects to support the rollout of new products.
- Working extensively with a third party vendor on a number of projects from solution design through implementation.
- Helped employ and lead a junior in house development team as they took over from the third party vendor.
- Did a full analysis of our Azure stack and implemented a number of costs saving measures to cut our cloud cost by 50%.
- Identified overlapping technologies within SuperSport and other divisions within Multichoice to take advantage of their existing skills and expertise and at the same time achieving cost savings.
- Demonstrated creativity and resourcefulness through the development of innovative solutions.
Senior Solutions Architect
Multichoice - Connected Video
01.2017 - 05.2022
- A large portion of my time with Connected Video was spent doing high level impact assessments for projects by helping the company's E2E architecture team complete the architecture as well as helping the team then implement the solution when it comes time for the delivery portion of the project.
- Was heavily involved in integrating the DStv Now site with the various systems designed for the satellite portion of the business for both VOD and Linear content.
- I worked on the meta data and scheduling automation chain and services, as well as on the actual processing of the video assets.
- I was involved heavily in the on time delivery project to speed up the asset workflow so content becomes available as quickly as possible after airing.
- Was involved in designing the solution to add dynamic ads to our VOD content.
- Used strong analytical and problem-solving skills to develop effective solutions for challenging situations.
- Demonstrated leadership skills in managing projects from concept to completion.
Solutions Architect
Multichoice - DStv Online
01.2015 - 01.2017
- Became the solutions architect for the CMS for all the DStv online properties including DStv, DStv Now all the channel sites.
- Designed a Free-VOD product for the Multichoice partner sites.
- Worked with the product team and all the stakeholders on the CMS to gather the requirements and design the solution for new features for the CMS.
- Worked with developers and engineers to realize technological solutions.
- Added an API gateway for third party consumers to access the CMS REST API's
Team Lead
Multichoice - DStv Online
01.2011 - 01.2015
- In 2011 I became the team lead of the SuperSport team working with a team ranging from 3 to 4 developers, a tester, a UX person and a designer.
- We implemented continuous integration and continuous deployment using SVN and Jenkins. Also adding much more emphasis on testing in dev and staging environments.
- Before moving we were in the process of converting the SuperSport site to a new widget framework and using REST services for all our data
Senior Developer
Multichoice - DStv Online
01.2009 - 01.2011
- As the SuperSport user base grew it became necessary to change the site's architecture to handle the load, so we started to optimize the site putting a large emphasis on caching for which we primarily used Memcached and .Net output cache.
- Also wrote a new library to standardize the data across all the now many platforms including web, mobi, iPhone and TV
- I wrote a number of ingest services during this period as we moved towards outside data suppliers. The services were per sport and would take XML from a supplier and convert it to our models.
- The company moved from using VB.Net to C# and I rewrote the main SuperSport site in C#.
- Was also involved in moving some of the backend services to Java and to a NoSQL model.
Mid-Level Developer
SuperSport
01.2006 - 01.2009
- Created a new CMS for the SuperSport online properties in .Net, as well as re-developed the SuperSport site to also use .Net in line with the new CMS.
- Wrote VB.Net windows applications to maintain and update the SuperSport application on the decoders.
- Created an SMS application to take over from the old voice XML application where a user would SMS a code and based on that text, an SMS was sent to the user with the relevant sport data.
- Continued to create partner sites. At one point we had 40 partner sites which we built and maintained.
Junior Developer
SuperSport
01.2002 - 01.2006
- In 2002 we took over developing the SuperSport site from Mweb. The site was written in asp.
- I helped develop a new version of the site in this period going towards a more template based design for all the sports.
- We also started creating many partner sites for the company including Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates, Sharks, Bulls and Western Province and many smaller team sites.
- I wrote a voice XML application where the public could phone in and get the latest sport results read back to them.
Content Controller
SuperSport
09.2000 - 01.2002
- As a content controller for Supersport my job was to maintain the sites with the latest sport data. The job was primarily editing the data and putting in the necessary HTML and CSS to publish it on the SuperSport site.
Certification
Azure Administrator
Education
High School Diploma -
Potchefstroom Boys High School
Potchefstroom 01.1993 - 12.1997
Skills
Cloud Solution Design & Infrastructure Management (AWS and Azure)
Proficient in Cloudinary for image optimisation
Management of multi-CDN environments
Cloud Migration and Management
Business-IT Alignment and Collaboration
Solution Architecture and Design
Event Driven Architecture
Service-Oriented Architecture
Serverless Architecture
Containerization expertise
IT cost optimisation and ROI Analysis
System Integration and Interoperability
Stakeholder management
Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABR) & Transcoding Workflows
Media Workflow Optimisation (Encoding, Packaging, Delivery)