Application Operations Specialist

Role Overview

The Application Operations Specialist excels in managing and maintaining vital applications that serve organizational needs, performing daily system health assessments, and ensuring operational stability. This role also involves participating in Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings and conducting post-change evaluations, with an emphasis on implementing automation wherever practical to optimize efficiency.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

• Oversee multiple critical applications to guarantee scalable, dependable, and accessible IT systems.
• Develop and contribute to operational strategies that interface effectively with both application owners and users.
• Assist in designing monitoring solutions for applications under management.
• Comprehend cybersecurity protocols including Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) as they relate to app operations.
• Provide technical guidance and feedback to application and development teams for continuous improvement.
• Analyze usage trends and maintain dashboards to monitor application availability, supporting SLA performance tracking.
• Create comprehensive documentation outlining deployment processes, system startups, and service prioritization.
• Utilize Microsoft Active Directory expertise to manage application delivery to end-users.
• Monitor user adoption and facilitate application enhancements through close collaboration with internal clients.
• Develop and maintain technical standards and process documentation related to application services.
• Participate in root cause analysis for service disruptions, contributing to strategies that minimize failures and downtime.
• Plan and execute maintenance schedules for software applications.
• Share knowledge within support teams and contribute to organizational knowledge repositories.
• Manage technology delivery aligned with service level agreements from project handover to ongoing application ownership.
• Recommend strategies for cost optimization and operational efficiency.
• Engage in professional development and certifications to enhance expertise.
• Lead efforts to automate processes through scripting and use of automation tools like Ansible, leveraging programming languages such as PowerShell, Visual Basic, JavaScript, Python, C#, HTML, HTML5, ASP.
• Improve system utilization and maintain software updates.
• Assist in patch management, deployment, and system restarts as necessary.
• Learn from system outages to enhance uptime and process robustness.

Educational Qualifications

A Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related disciplines is required. ITIL v3 (or higher) Foundation certification is preferred.

Required Skills and Competencies

• Commitment to continuous process improvement.
• Excellent verbal and written communication along with presentation skills.
• Customer service orientation and process discipline.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
• Effective influence and teaching capabilities.
• Experience in engaging with service providers and vendors.
• Solid knowledge in application development and design methodologies.

Experience Requirements

A minimum of 3 years' experience is essential, ideally within a large corporate environment or a government organization. Familiarity with Operational Technology (OT) and/or manufacturing sectors is advantageous. Exposure to software development frameworks and methodologies is also desirable.