All WAYSTONE employees are expected to demonstrate our core competencies as outlined below. The role Applications Operations Manager has unique requirements and duties; however, these responsibilities are to be executed within the organization’s framework of core values. WAYSTONE expects all employees to be high performing, self-motivated, learners and leaders.
Summary: Reporting to the Chief Digital Officer, the Applications Operations Manager will be an integral part of the Digital Services team’s success. The Applications Operations Manager will perform a hands-on role responsible for overseeing that all our business applications run and operate in an efficient manner, giving the business agility, and addressing operational needs quickly. The Applications Operations Manager supports and optimizes existing systems and drives out overall efficiency and effectiveness in meeting the needs of our clients.
This is an exciting opportunity for a dynamic individual to apply their valuable experience in a fast-paced growing global organisation, and contribute to the digital landscape of this company, strengthening our business and client experience as we rapidly scale. This is a busy and high visibility role where the successful candidate will need to be highly organised and able to manage different activities simultaneously within an agile digital environment.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Develop and implement standard operating procedures and best practices for operations and support of software, including release management and adherence to quality standards for multiple applications in compliance with various internal and external standards, such as ITIL.
- Define, acquire, and maintain tools to improve the efficiency of the operations and technical support and track compliance with standard operating procedures.
- Engage with stakeholders to understand needs, priorities, and to capture requirements for operational needs and improve transparency.
- Service Delivery as per agreed KPIs and Service Levels Agreements.
- Ensure proactive and preventive maintenance activities are implemented on in-scope IT Applications to improve the availability of services.
- Develop and maintain a comprehensive application architecture library that becomes a fundamental point of reference for when change to the ecosystem is proprosed.
- Develop an application rationalisation programme, and continuously execute to remove unnecessary duplication of applications, technical processes and technical debt.
- Manage critical production issues and escalations end-to-end, ensuring the correct stakeholders are involved to be able to drive resolution, communicating to impacted business units, gather data on impact to systems and business, and report on impacts via metrics to leadership teams.
- Provide subject matter expertise (SME) leadership and consulting support on complex tasks related to the primary functions of the position.
- Ensure that vendor management is performed, and all escalation procedures are undertaken as and when needed.
- Coach, mentor, motivate and supervise team members. Influence them to take positive action and accountability for their assigned work.
- Champion greater utilization of digital toolkit across the organization to drive out continuous improvement and adoption.
Experience:
- 5+ years of relevant experience, ideally within the funds industry (preferred) or broader financial services industry, in highly regulated environments.
- Previous experience in managing business applications, balancing multiple high-impact projects for mid-size to large organisations.
- Must possess in-depth knowledge of software lifecycles and software deployment methodologies
- Experience in cloud and database concepts.
- Experience in providing technical guidance to enable others and support junior colleagues with technical queries and personal growth
- Strong knowledge of new and emerging technologies based on own area of expertise.
- A proven record in collaborating with stakeholders at all levels, in the conduct of investigations for strategy studies, business requirements specifications and feasibility studies.
- Advanced data analytical skills and outstanding problem-solving capabilities, particularly with loosely defined structure and scope.
- Demonstrable professional integrity and dedication to upholding the company’s high-quality standards and customer service focus.
- Proven adherence to legal and regulatory guidelines, and in-house policies and business ethics.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate at both senior management and end user level.
- Must be highly motivated, self-driven, proactive and seek continuous learning opportunities.
Skills:
- Continued focus on lean process optimisation.
- Ability to manage multiple projects and operational tasks simultaneously.
- Effective problem-solving capabilities.
- Team work and emotional intelligence, with strong self-management and self-awareness – continuous performance is both a goal and a mind-set.
- Experience of introducing new concepts or strategies that significantly improve or revise the way business is done through to implementation.
- Excellent communication, shares ideas and information, facilitates discussions and transfers knowledge to team members and diverse audiences to achieve significant outcomes.
- Has an innovative approach – a bold thinker and doer, matching creativity with vigilance.
- Adept in interacting with everyone from developers to executives.
- Ability to perform escalation management, customer relationship management and vendor management capabilities.
- Identifies operational priorities by assessing operational objectives and determining project objectives, such as efficiency, prioritisation, schedules and costs.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or equivalent work experience
- Desirable: IT Service Management Certification (ITIL)
- Additional Quality Engineering courses or certifications, such as cloud computing, CI/CD, and environments and data management tools.
What can we offer?
- A highly supportive team environment.
- Competitive salary and benefits.
- Summer Friday’s – an opportunity to take one half day off per month in the summer months.
- WFH policy.