Ness Digital Engineering
Application Support Manager
Skills
Job description
Role purpose
Own the end-to-end delivery of application support for hundreds of applications, lead the transition of the application to new teams and run a lean, automation-driven support organization that continuously reduces effort through modern ization, cons oli dation and in novation.
Key responsibilities
Transition & takeover
Plan and lead the t ransition : due diligence, knowledge transfer, shadow and reverse-shadow phases, readiness gates and go-live sign-off.
Define the target operating model for the new teams , application clustering by portfolio/technology, and coverage model (L2/L3, on-call, follow-the-sun if needed).
Identify and mitigate transition risks, especially for the Critical/High applications
Ensure complete knowledge capture: runbooks, architecture views, SOPs, access, credentials handover and CMDB data quality.
Service delivery & governance
Own SLAs/KPIs (MTTR, backlog, SLA adherence, first-time fix, CSAT) and lead monthly service reviews and QBRs with client stakeholders.
Run ITIL processes: incident, problem, change, release, knowledge and major-incident management.
Manage ~14,400 tickets/year with a smaller team through demand reduction, problem elimination and shift-left .
Manage budget, capacity planning, contractor onboarding and performance within the commercial envelope.
Incident, defect & task management
Run day-to-day management of incidents, defects and client-created tasks in ServiceNow/Jira: assignment, prioritization, SLA tracking and closure quality.
Run daily stand-ups/triage with the Tech Lead and align the backlog priorities agreed with the client via the Service Client Manager.
Balance capacity between break-fix, defect resolution and client task delivery; flag capacity risks early.
Own problem management so recurring incidents become permanent fixes.
Modernization, merging & innovation
Partner with portfolio owners on application rationalization
Build a roadmap for consolidation/merging of overlapping applications, decommissioning and cloud/SaaS modernization.
Drive automation (self-healing, monitoring, AIOps, GenAI/Copilot-assisted support) to deliver measurable FTE and cost reduction year on year.
Present business cases for modernization initiatives with clear ROI and risk.
People leadership
Hire and onboard the team including Tech leads and core/key team members
Lead, coach and grow Tech Leads and engineers; build a multi-skilled, cross-trained team that can cover many applications.
Foster a culture of ownership, continuous improvement and knowledge sharing.
Required qualifications & skills
Proven track record leading application support, including the transition/takeover.
Strong ITIL v4 knowledge and hands-on ServiceNow (or similar ITSM) experience.
Experience running lean, outcome-based support models and achieving productivity gains through automation.
Good understanding of cloud-hosted application landscapes (AWS primary; GCP/Azure a plus ), SaaS and COTS.
Experience with application portfolio rationalization (Gartner TIME or similar) and modernization programs.
Excellent stakeholder management, executive communication and commercial awareness (budgets, SOWs, SLAs).
Nice to have
ITIL v4 Managing Professional, PMP/PRINCE2, AWS certification.
Experience in media, music or entertainment (royalties, rights, metadata, supply chain, D2C).
Exposure to AIOps, observability platforms (Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk) and GenAI for support.
Core competencies
Ownership mindset and calm under pressure in high-impact incidents.
Fast learner able to support many applications with varied technologies.
Clear written and verbal communication in English with business and technical stakeholders.
Continuous-improvement and automation-first thinking.