Application Support Manager

Position/Title: Technical Application support Head

Duration: Permanent

Location : Kuala Lumpur

Budget : RM 13,000

Job Description:

For the position of Head of Technical Operations, candidates best suited for the position would be those that have working experience handling technical application support in their past employment.

Ideal candidates would be those who achieved a level of seniority in recent years during which they have/are managing a team of application support engineers.

• Proficiency in various operating systems like Windows, Linux, Unix, etc., as applications can run on different platforms and experience in VMs (Virtual Machines)
• Understanding of database systems such as SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, or NoSQL databases. This includes querying databases, troubleshooting data-related issues, and basic database administration tasks and competent knowledge of at least a relational database;
• Experience with log analysis and root cause analysis;
• Knowledge of scripting languages for writing maintenance scripts, automating tasks, and extracting data from systems (e.g. Shell scripting, SQL Scripts);
• Familiarity with web technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and web services (RESTful APIs, SOAP) is essential for troubleshooting web-based applications;
• Understanding of networking concepts, protocols (TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS), and tools for network troubleshooting is necessary for addressing connectivity issues;
• Proficiency in version control systems like Git for managing and tracking changes to scripts, configurations, and application code;
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines and practices for automating the build, testing, and deployment of applications. Experience with CI/CD tools like GitLab CI/CD;
• Knowledge of configuration management and deployment tools (e.g. Ansible) to automate server configuration, application deployments, and environment setup across development, testing, and production environments;
• Experienced in collaborating with QA teams to integrate automated testing scripts into deployment pipelines, perform smoke tests, regression tests, and ensure the quality and reliability of deployments;
• Strong documentation skills to create deployment guides, runbooks, and procedures. Effective communication and collaboration with development teams, stakeholders, and other IT teams involved in the deployment process;
• Experience with monitoring tools such as Nagios or Zabbix to monitor system performance, detect issues, and generate alerts;
• Familiar with issue tracking tools like JIRA;
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to diagnose and resolve application issues efficiently. A proactive approach to spotting problems, areas for improvement, and performance bottlenecks;
• Good documentation skills to maintain logs, write technical documents, and create troubleshooting guides for common issues;
• Effective communication skills and a customer-centric approach to interact with end-users, understand their issues, and provide timely solutions;
• Familiarity with ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) practices and processes for incident management, problem management, and change management;
• Understanding of systems architecture, software development lifecycle (SDLC), and technology stacks to provide technical guidance, evaluate system designs, and recommend improvements
• Awareness of basic cybersecurity principles and practices to ensure the security of applications and data.

As the Head of the Technical Operations Department, apart from Technical skills, candidates would need to have the following qualities/abilities. The following essentially reflects the Job description of the Head of TechOps:

1. lead, motivate, mentor, and coach a team of technical support engineers, ensuring they have the necessary skills, resources, and support to excel in their roles.
2. make informed decisions, prioritize tasks, allocate resources effectively, and solve complex problems to drive team performance and achieve goals.
3. handle conflicts, mediate disputes, and foster a positive team environment focused on collaboration, communication, and mutual respect.
4. set clear goals, objectives, KPIs, and performance metrics for the team, and track progress towards achieving them.
5. strong verbal and written communication skills to interact with stakeholders, clients, management, and team members. Communicate technical concepts and solutions clearly and concisely.
6. foster collaboration and cross-functional teamwork between technical support engineers, development teams, QA teams, project managers, and other stakeholders to deliver integrated solutions and support services.
7. maintain a customer-centric approach, understand customer needs, expectations, and feedback, and ensure timely and effective resolution of customer issues and inquiries.
8. define, monitor, and meet SLAs and service quality standards to deliver excellent customer support and satisfaction
9. develop and execute strategic plans, roadmaps, and initiatives to improve technical support processes, enhance team capabilities, and align with organizational goals and objectives.
10. promote innovation, continuous improvement, and adoption of new technologies, tools, and best practices to optimize support operations and drive business value.
11. plan, coordinate, and oversee initiatives, and implementations related to application support, upgrades, migrations, and system integrations.
12. identify, assess, and mitigate risks related to technical support operations, deployment and customer satisfaction.