Manager, Application Support

Team Management: Lead, mentor, and develop a team of application support specialists. Assign tasks and responsibilities, ensuring efficient workload distribution. Conduct regular performance evaluations and provide feedback to team members. Encourage adoption of modern operational practices, including SRE-aligned approaches such as automation, proactive monitoring, and continuous improvement. Support Operations: Oversee the day-to-day operations of the application support team. Ensure timely and effective resolution of incidents and service requests. Develop and implement support processes and best practices to improve service delivery. Apply foundational SRE concepts such as reducing manual effort (toil) and improving service reliability through better monitoring and operational discipline. Ensure adherence to ITIL practices to maintain consistent and structured service operations. Incident and Problem Management: Monitor and manage the incident lifecycle, ensuring adherence to SLAs. Analyze incident trends and identify root causes of recurring issues. Collaborate with development and infrastructure teams to implement permanent solutions. Conduct structured Root Cause Analysis and ensure follow‑through on preventive and corrective actions. Utilize basic SRE metrics (like error patterns or service health indicators) where relevant to improve reliability. Stakeholder Collaboration: Work closely with business units to understand their application needs and priorities. Liaise with vendors and third‑party service providers to ensure optimal application performance. Communicate effectively with stakeholders regarding application issues and updates. Collaborate with engineering, DevOps, or SRE teams during releases, upgrades, and planned enhancements to ensure smooth and reliable deployments. Continuous Improvement: Identify opportunities for process improvements and automation within the support function. Lead initiatives to enhance application performance, reliability, and user experience. Stay updated on industry trends and emerging technologies to drive innovation. Apply relevant SRE concepts — such as proactive monitoring, stability improvements, and automation — to strengthen overall service quality. Reporting and Documentation: Generate and present regular reports on support activities, performance metrics, and improvement initiatives. Ensure the maintenance of comprehensive support documentation and knowledge base articles. Track operational performance, including SLAs and relevant reliability indicators, to support continuous service improvements. Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field. A Master’s degree or relevant certifications (ITIL, Cloud, SRE Foundation) is a plus. Experience: 10+ years of overall experience in IT, with strong exposure to application support, IT operations, or production systems.