WATER QUALITY SPECIALIST

The purpose of the job is to provide scientific and engineering water quality assurance services across the entire drinking water supply, from raw water to point of supply to consumers.

• NQF 8 - in science, water quality engineering or chemical engineering
• NQF 6 - General management
• 8 years of post-graduate experience in the science and or engineering industry
• 5 years of post-graduate experience in the water industry
• 2 years of post-graduate experience in project management
• 3 years experience in managing science or engineering staff
• Code 8 driver's licence
• Competent in WORD, EXCEL, PowerPoint, pro-ADOBE, Outlook, etc.

OTHER DESIRABLE NEEDS

• NQF 6+ in project management
• NQF 5+ digital technology including:
• Water supply system digital modelling
• Artificial Intelligence
• Experience in:
• Water supply system digital modelling
• Artificial Intelligence

The overall duty of the job is to assure the supply of safe and acceptable quality drinking water to consumers produced from raw water sources. Raw water includes surface water, groundwater, domestic wastewater treatment plant effluent, industrial wastewater treatment plant effluent, mine wastewater treatment plant effluent, and/or saline water.

The following are the specific duties of the position:

• Understand and conduct short, medium and long-term water quality risk assessments on raw water sources and determining the suitability of the drinking water supply system infrastructure (treatment plants and distribution networks) to continuously produce safe and acceptable quality drinking water.

• Verifying capability of drinking water supply system infrastructure to produce safe and acceptable drinking water supplies, including:

• • Review and provide operations optimisation comments for existing drinking water supply system infrastructure,
• Comment and participate in process audits (process capability and process condition assessments), and/or

• Comment on suitability of proposed new / changed drinking water supply system infrastructure.

• Develop, optimising, and implementing Water Safety Plans (Water Quality Management Systems) for Rand Water's current, and potential new water supply systems. This includes the ability to define, optimise and ensure implementation of water quality monitoring programmes and incident management protocols.

• Conduct department services to commercial projects.

• Incorporating digital technologies (modelling, artificial intelligence - AI, etc) in all the department outputs/services.

• Providing leadership:

• • Planning, organising, implementing, and controlling section work,
• Managing human resources, and

Managing finance and procurement.

• Water industry
• Drinking water quality science
• Drinking water treatment and engineering
• Project management and project programme management technology
• Risk assessment technology
• Digital technology
• General business management

• Understanding the water industry and water science with a focus on water quality
• Drinking water treatment and engineering skills
• Project management and multiple programme management skills
• Ability to "create/identify" projects with a customer (entrepreneurial skills)
• Digital skills (water system modelling, Artificial Intelligence)
• Problem-solving ability
• Ability to improvise (work with imprecise / missing information and under uncertain conditions)
• Ability to focus on the holistic big picture
• Ability to continuously link activity with financial impact
• Networking ability
• Persuasive
• Persistent
• Decisive and non-procrastinating

• Mindset of service excellence / "customer is the king"
• Inquisitive and willing to experiment
• Risk tolerance and welcomes management of risks rather than avoiding it
• Adaptable/flexible
• Self-starter and ability to take the initiative / work independently
• Not averse to working outside standard office hours
• Focus on completing tasks rather than on achievements