Application Lead

Job Overview :

We are looking for an experienced and dynamic Application Lead to manage and optimize the performance of our critical applications. You will be responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations, driving incident resolution, ensuring compliance, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. This role requires a seasoned professional with strong technical expertise, leadership capabilities, and the ability to operate in a 24/7 support environment.

Responsibilities :

- Manage day-to-day operations, application KPIs, service KPIs, escalations, and ticket SLAs, ensuring adherence to established targets.

- Participate in Sev1 & Sev2 issues and proactively drive them towards timely resolution.

- Ensure Root Cause Analyses (RCAs) and associated action items are thoroughly documented and closed in accordance with problem and service management guidelines.

- Review volumetrics, traffic/routing patterns, and business KPI trends, guiding SMEs/L2s to identify abnormal patterns or deviations that could lead to future system issues.

- Assist the track lead/platform lead in evaluating and defining KPIs to promote an ongoing process of improvement.

- Guide SME/L2 teams in continually improving application observability.

- Conduct regular interlocks with the Product, Development, and Program teams to prioritize production defects, exceptions, and recurring alerts.

- Ensure all cadence meetings and deliverables adhere to organizational standards.

- Assist in the timely reporting of critical issues to management and generate comprehensive Management Information Systems (MIS) reports.

- Ensure all documents, run books, and learning materials are up to date, and that the defined learning cadence for the team and self is maintained.

- Foster a healthy work culture that meets organizational standards and maintain team strength through timely appraisals and hiring.

- Review changes alongside SMEs, assessing their end-to-end impact and limitations to prevent destabilization or impact on existing functionality.

- Ensure changes are thoroughly tested in Replica environments and meet all production standards before deployment.

- Lead project activities such as upgrades, migrations, and new product implementations, attending solution walkthroughs and HOTO (Handover-Takeover) sessions.

- Participate in the onboarding of new functionality and services.

- Support project deadlines by timely completing all desired HOTO processes.

- Ensure new services are thoroughly tested in replica environments and meet all production standards.

- Ensure proper communication and updates are provided to all stakeholders in the project and senior management.

- Create a Lessons Learned document upon project closure for future project reference.

- Participate in addressing all Application Security concerns (InfoSec observations, BAVAMA tasks), ensuring they are actioned and closed on priority.

- Lead all Audit, Compliance, and Regulatory tasks, maintaining a specific tracker for expedited closure with support from the security operations team.

Requirements :

- Minimum 10 years of recent experience in Application Support, Technology Support, DevOps, or CloudOps.

- Must be ready to work in a 24/7 support environment.

- Must have led support teams of L1, L2, and SMEs in any technology operations environment that practices ITIL and DevOps principles.

- Hands-on experience with Unix Commands, Shell Scripting, PL/SQL, NoSQL, and JCL.

- Programming Language proficiency : Java, Python.

- Hands-on experience with observability tools like ELK, Kibana, Grafana, AppD, Splunk, or any other similar tools.

- Must have domain knowledge in E-commerce, Retail, Consumer Goods, Supply Chain, or equivalent domain applications that involve direct customer-facing web or mobile applications.

- Hands-on experience analyzing logs, thread dumps, heap dumps, GCs, etc.

- Working/Functional knowledge of SAP Hybris, IBM Sterling, Magento Commerce, SAP, or any other E-commerce platform would be an added advantage.

- ITIL Foundation certification will be an added advantage.

- Good understanding of microservices architecture.

- Working knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes, and Cloud platforms would be an added advantage.

- Strong written and verbal communication skills are a must.