Application Production Specialist (Banking, 1-year renewable contract)

Key Responsibilities

• Provide end-to-end Application Production Support for global banking applications, including incident identification, investigation, and resolution.
• Perform Problem Management activities: root cause analysis, mitigation planning, and tracking permanent fixes.
• Manage incident and problem tickets using enterprise ITSM tools.
• Conduct capacity and performance monitoring to ensure system stability and availability.
• Collaborate with development teams for knowledge transfer, onboarding of new services, and support for major upgrades.
• Support internal and external audits by providing required documentation and technical insights.
• Partner with Business and Operations teams to understand KPIs, prioritize defect fixes, and enhance service stability.
• Troubleshoot complex technical issues across applications, middleware, databases, and infrastructure layers.
• Coordinate with infrastructure, development, and testing teams for release cycles, patching, and hardware/software upgrades.
• Participate in readiness assessments, operational governance, and continuous service improvements.
• Support event-driven and batch processing workflows.
• Provide real-time issue triage and service restoration during production outages, ensuring timely stakeholder communication.
• Participate in on-call rotations, including occasional weekend and bank holiday support.
• Recommend improvements, automation opportunities, and enhancements to strengthen production stability and performance.

Key Requirements

• Minimum 5 years of IT experience, particularly in Production Support, Release Support, ITIL processes, or technical operations.
• Strong proficiency in Java/J2EE, including Core Java, JDBC, EJB, web services, AOP, XML/XSLT, and MQ.
• Working knowledge of middleware technologies such as Message Broker, IBM WebSphere MQ, JBoss, and MuleSoft.
• Solid hands-on expertise in Unix and Windows operating systems with strong scripting capabilities.
• Experience with Oracle, DB2, PL/SQL, and ability to perform database queries for incident analysis.
• Familiarity with event-driven and batch processing environments.
• Experience handling L1/L2/L3 production support functions using modern monitoring and scheduling tools.
• Proven ability to troubleshoot complex application and infrastructure issues, perform RCA, and drive mitigation.
• Skilled in managing incident restoration, impact assessment, escalation, and communication.
• Experience supporting integrated/independent releases, deployments, and infrastructure upgrades.
• Strong communication skills with ability to interact effectively across technical and business teams.
• Ability to develop documentation, policies, procedures, and drive continuous service improvement.
• Willingness to work in rotating shifts, including weekends and bank holidays.