Application Support Manager

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 modernization, consolidation and innovation. 

Key responsibilities 

Transition & takeover 

• Plan and lead the  transition: 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.