Senior Manager, Application Support

Summary/Objective

Shaw Systems is a national leader in software development, known for our solid financial performance and commitment to quality products. Shaw’s Senior Manager, Application Support is responsible for leading a 24/7 Application Support team, ensuring high availability, performance, and security of Shaw’s Loan Management platform across cloud-hosted client sites. In collaboration with the Director of the ECC, Director of Cloud/Service Ops, the Director, Information Security Officer, this position will oversee all aspects of site reliability (SRE) related to the application and consult, collaborate and advise in all other SRE-related areas.

Responsibilities

As the Sr Manager of the Application Support team, this individual has comprehensive supervisory responsibilities over the same Team. This includes direct oversight of:

• Application Support: Consults with and provides input and triage support to the team members related to the day-to-day functionality and performance issues for Shaw’s enterprise Loan Servicing Platform.
• Leadership: Sets the Application Support team’s priorities and facilitates the work product in alignment of the overall Enterprise Operations goals and objectives. Manages a diverse team, including employees, contractors, and vendors, across multiple shifts to ensure continuous operation.
• Resource Allocation: Manages the allocation of Application Support staff, including employees, onshore and offshore contractors, and applicable vendor relationships, to ensure optimal team composition and capability.
• Issues Escalation and Resolution: Acts as the secondary point of escalation for Priority 1 / “Blocker” issues, security incidents, and BCP/DR Events, in addition to operational challenges, guiding the team through resolution processes and ensuring effective communication with stakeholders.
• Operational Strategy and Execution: Plays a pivotal role in developing and executing the operational strategy for the Application Support team, ensuring alignment with broader Enterprise Operations organizational goals.
• Team Development: Shares the responsibility, with the Chief Operating Officer for the recruitment, training, and professional development of the Application Support function at Shaw. This role is tasked with building a cohesive, highly skilled team capable of meeting Shaw Systems' operational and strategic objectives.
• Collaboration: Works closely with the Director of ECC, Director of Cloud and Service Operations for second and third-level support for issues. Works closely with the Information Security Office, escalating all potential security incidents within Shaw’s incident response policy and procedures. This role also requires frequent interaction with Service Ops, Dev Ops, Cloud Ops, Release Management, Strategic Account Managers, Program & Change Management and Shaw’s Clients Operation Staff to ensure integrated and efficient operational strategies across all technical infrastructure and security-related implementations.
• Issue Management and Resolution: From time to time acts as a secondary Issue Manager to Priority 1 / “Blocker” issues on 1st shift and serves on a rotational Issue Manager for 2nd and Weekend shifts (typically a week coverage every 10 to 12 weeks)
• 24x7x365 Enterprise Operations: Partner with the VP of Client Engagement, VP of Development, Enterprise Operations Leadership, and the Information Security Officer, to ensure that we continue to develop and implement comprehensive strategies for supporting our 24x7x365 Enterprise Operations Center providing service excellence to our clients.
• Operating Procedures: Develop and Document standard operating procedures related to all internal operations KPIs/SLAs and Shaw’s SOC 2 Type II compliance.
• Performance Optimization: Partners with Enterprise Operations leadership to lead initiatives to analyze system performance and implement solutions for optimization. Oversee the execution of performance tuning, unit testing and implementation to identify and remediate actual and potential bottlenecks in application and infrastructure layers.
• Capacity Planning: Supports the Director, Cloud, and Service Ops in the ongoing capacity planning to ensure infrastructure scalability and reliability. Works with the engineering and product teams to forecast future demands and plan resource expansions accordingly.
• Automation and Efficiency: Champions the adoption of automation tools and practices within the Application Support team to streamline operational workflows and reduce manual intervention. Identifies opportunities for automating routine maintenance tasks and issue response processes.
• Training and Mentoring: Leads efforts to train and mentor team members on best practices, new technologies, and operational procedures. Encourages a culture of continuous learning and improvement within the team.
• Strategic Planning: Engages with cross-functional teams to evaluate and enhance Enterprise Operations service delivery. Develops strategic plans and supports projects to meet Information Security and operational goals.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Engages with key business partners to understand operational requirements and align Application Support strategies with business objectives.
• Mentorship and Guidance: Provides ongoing mentorship, guidance, and support to team members, fostering an environment of continuous learning and operational excellence. Routinely evaluates the effectiveness of the Application Support team in meeting stakeholder needs and adjusts as necessary.

Requirements

• Minimum of 7 years of experience in leading technical teams, preferably within an application development or support role, demonstrating effective team management, mentorship, and the ability to foster a culture of continuous improvement.
• Technical Proficiency: Minimum of 5 years of technical experience in supporting a mission-critical application within IT systems, with a solid background in cloud platforms. This includes experience with system monitoring tools/alerts, performance optimization practices, and automation technologies.
• Collaboration and Communication: Proven track record of successful collaboration with multiple teams requiring at least 5 years of experience in roles that necessitated frequent cross-functional coordination and excellent interpersonal skills.
• Issue Management: Minimum of 3 years of experience in issue and incident management, including leading response teams, conducting root cause analysis, and implementing systemic solutions to prevent the recurrence of issues.
• System Monitoring and Alerting: At least 3 years of experience developing and implementing monitoring and alerting systems to proactively identify operational, performance, and security issues.
• Capacity Planning and Performance Optimization: A minimum of 5 years of experience in capacity planning and performance testing to ensure system scalability and reliability, including hands-on experience with performance analysis and optimization in complex environments.
• Automation and Efficiency: Minimum of 3 years of experience implementing automation within operational teams, demonstrating significant achievements in automating maintenance tasks, deployments, and incident responses to improve efficiency and reduce manual overhead.
• Effective Communication: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, with demonstrated experience in articulating technical challenges and solutions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Skills

• Agile Methodology Expertise: Solid understanding of Agile SDLC practices and applying Agile methodologies within SRE or similar technical teams.
• Specialized Tool Proficiency: Hands-on experience with industry-leading tools and platforms that enhance development and application support operations, including Solar Winds DPA, GIT, Java, SQL Server and lesser technical tools such as Jira, Confluence, PagerDuty, Office Suite, Draw.IO among others.
• Monitoring and Alerting: Experience with application monitoring (APM) tools like Dynatrace or ELK for comprehensive monitoring and real-time alerting.
• Automation and Orchestration: Experience leveraging automation tools such as Ansible, Terraform, or Jenkins for operational efficiency and reliability.
• Performance Testing: Proficiency in leading the performance testing with tools such as JMeter or LoadRunner.
• Security Practices: Experience collaborating with Information Security teams to implement and manage security policies, practices, and incident response strategies that align with organizational security objectives.
• Strategic Planning: Experience in developing and executing strategic plans that align SRE operations with business goals, including the ability to influence process improvements and operational change.
• Training and Development: A commitment to continuous learning and development, both for self and team, with experience in leading training sessions on new technologies, best practices, and operational procedures.

Education / Certifications    

• BS/BA degree in IT, Computer Science, or a related field is required.

Location

This position may work from any of the following locations:  Hybrid office schedule if within 75 miles of Houston, TX.  Remote with the ability to travel at least 15% from the following states:  Texas if more than 75 miles from the office location, Virginia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Utah.

** Shaw Systems employees are not authorized to work in any state not listed above our outside of the US without specific written permission from their direct manager and approval from the Information Security Office..**

Work Environment and Physical Demands

This is a full-time position. Days of work are Monday through Friday.  The daily schedule may vary from 7 am – 4 pm, 8 am – 5 pm or 9 am – 6 pm, and occasional after-hours or weekend work may be required.  Hours may vary or exceed 40 in any given week depending on the needs of the business. Occasional after-hours work or weekend work is required for this position.

Travel

Limited travel (up to 15%) is expected for this position.