IT Director, Application Production Support - Commercial Insurance - Blue Bell, PA

As the IT Director of Application Production Support in the commercial insurance industry, you will operate in a newly created role to shape and execute on the application production support strategy for PMA. You will be responsible for developing a production support organization and overseeing application support to ensure the stability, availability, and performance of enterprise applications. This role involves strategic leadership, management of production support operations, and collaboration with various IT and business stakeholders to enhance application performance and user satisfaction.

Principle Duties / Responsibilities

• Leadership & Strategy:




• Develop and execute on a comprehensive strategy for building an application production support team in alignment with industry best practices.
• Build, lead and manage the application production support team, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and high performance.
• Develop and implement strategies for efficient application support and incident management.
• Develop and implement enhanced DevOps strategies.
• Establish KPIs and metrics to measure team performance and application stability.




• Operational Oversight:




• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to oversee daily operations of application support, including incident resolution, problem management, and change management processes to ensure operating level agreements are met.
• Manage and oversee production support operations of vendors involved in supporting PMA applications ensuring vendors adhere to expected service performance levels.
• Manage and oversee Development Operations (DevOps) to ensure timely build and deployment of applications to software environments.
• Ensure timely resolution of production issues and minimize application downtime.
• Proactively plan for and implement routine, minor application/environment patching.
• Ensure root cause analysis is performed for production incidents and that underlying problems are managed to closure.
• Collaborate with development and QA teams to ensure a smooth transition of new applications into non-production and production environments.




• Stakeholder Engagement:




• Serve as a primary point of contact for business units regarding application performance, issues, and enhancements not addressable by the service desk.
• Work closely with IT leadership to align application support strategies with business objectives.




• Process Improvement:




• Identify areas for improvement in application support and DevOps processes and implement best practices.
• Drive the adoption of automation tools and techniques to enhance production support efficiency and reduce manual intervention.




• Team Development:




• Mentor and develop team members, providing guidance and training to enhance their technical and leadership skills.
• Promote a collaborative and innovative work environment.




• Budget & Resource Management:




• Plan and manage the budget for application support operations, ensuring optimal use of resources.
• Assess and recommend tools and technologies to enhance application monitoring and support capabilities.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field; Master's degree preferred.

• 15+ years of experience in IT, with at least 5 years in a leadership role focused on application support -- preferably in the commercial insurance industry.

• Strong understanding of application architecture, system integrations, and enterprise software.
• Proven experience in incident management, problem resolution, and process improvement methodologies.
• Well versed in IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) concepts and methods.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to engage stakeholders at all levels.
• Familiarity with job scheduler software, DevOps tools, monitoring tools, IT ticketing systems, and database management.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience with both on-premises and cloud-based applications and services.
• Knowledge of DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines.
• Understanding of cybersecurity principles related to application support.

Work Environment:

• Hybrid (3 days onsite per week in Blue Bell, PA Headquarters)

If you are passionate about application support operations to drive business success in the commercial insurance sector, we invite you to apply and become a key player in our IT organization.