Associate Director

Role Overview:

We are seeking a senior, strategic, and hands-on Associate Director – Application Production Support to lead large-scale enterprise production support operations across a diverse portfolio of business-critical applications.

This role is accountable for service stability, governance, client satisfaction, and operational excellence. The Associate Director will provide leadership across multi-tier (L1/L2/L3) support teams, drive continuous improvement initiatives, and partner closely with engineering, cloud, and business leadership.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in the Microsoft technology stack, Azure cloud services, ITSM/ITIL practices, and has successfully managed client-facing support portfolios at scale.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic & Operational Leadership

• Own end-to-end production support delivery for multiple enterprise applications and client accounts.
• Define and execute the support strategy aligned with business growth, SLAs, and client expectations.
• Establish and govern enterprise-grade support models, escalation frameworks, and operational KPIs.
• Act as the senior escalation point for critical (P1/P2) incidents and client concerns.

Service Excellence & Governance

• Ensure high availability, performance, reliability, and security of production systems.
• Drive proactive monitoring, incident management, problem management, and change governance.
• Lead root cause analysis (RCA), trend analysis, and preventive actions to reduce repeat incidents.
• Ensure compliance with organizational policies, regulatory standards, and audit requirements.

Client & Stakeholder Management

• Build and manage senior client relationships, acting as a trusted advisor for production stability and transformation.
• Lead service reviews, operational reporting, and executive-level communication.
• Partner with delivery, architecture, cloud, and business teams to ensure seamless support outcomes.

People & Capability Leadership

• Lead, mentor, and scale high-performing L1/L2/L3 support teams and team leads.
• Drive talent development, performance management, and succession planning.
• Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement.

Transformation & Continuous Improvement

• Lead initiatives around application modernization, cloud migration, and support transformation.
• Drive automation, self-healing, and DevOps-aligned support practices.
• Collaborate with Agile and engineering teams to align support with development and release cycles.
• Influence tooling enhancements across monitoring, ITSM, and reporting platforms.

Delivery & Management Responsibilities

• Oversee risk management and mitigation in collaboration with senior delivery leadership.
• Review operational metrics, client dashboards, and executive reports.
• Ensure accurate, timely, and innovative reporting across service performance and improvements.
• Guide code reviews, release planning support, build planning, and deployment readiness.

Required Skills & Experience

• 15+ years of overall IT experience, with 8+ years in leadership roles managing enterprise application production support.
• Proven experience handling large, complex, client-facing support engagements.
• Strong hands-on expertise with:
• Microsoft technology stack (.NET, SQL Server, IIS)
• Azure services (monitoring, diagnostics, automation, security)
• ITSM tools (ServiceNow, BMC Remedy, or equivalent)
• Deep understanding of ITIL processes (Incident, Problem, Change, Release).
• Experience managing L1, L2, and L3 support teams at scale.
• Working knowledge of Agile/DevOps environments.
• Experience with application transformation and cloud migration programs.
• Strong executive communication, stakeholder engagement, and decision-making abilities.
• Ability to lead under pressure and manage business-critical incidents.

Preferred Qualifications

• MCA / B.Tech / M.Tech / MBA or equivalent
• ITIL Foundation or higher certification
• Microsoft Azure Administrator / Architect certification
• Agile certifications (Scrum Master, SAFe Agilist – preferred)
• Experience in regulated industries (BFSI, Insurance, Healthcare)