Job Title: Head of Production - Application Management Group

Reports to the CTO

Location: Mumbai

Role Overview:

Application Management Group in a BANK environment, I oversee the seamless functioning of a highly complex and critical production ecosystem, supporting enterprise applications spanning retail banking, corporate banking, digital channels, payments, risk, and compliance platforms.

The role is pivotal in driving operational stability, service excellence, stakeholder satisfaction, and technology resiliency. Lead a large-scale, hybrid team comprising of full-time employees and contractors operating across multiple locations and time zones.

Core Responsibilities:

Production Stability & Operational Oversight:

- Ensure 24x7 stability of business-critical applications with zero tolerance for production outages in customer-facing platforms.

- Define and drive the Incident, Problem, and Change Management processes to ensure timely resolution, root cause analysis, and prevention of recurring issues.

- Implement monitoring, automation, and self-healing tools to improve observability and reduce manual interventions.

Business & Stakeholder Engagement:

- Serve as the primary point of contact for business heads and senior leaders on all production-related concerns.

- Provide real-time communication and transparency during high-impact incidents, ensuring timely updates and structured post-mortems.

- Regularly engage with business units to prioritize production enhancements, manage demand, and align IT operations with evolving business goals.

Service Management & SLA Adherence:

- Govern and track performance against defined SLAs and KPIs for all support functions, ensuring measurable outcomes in service quality, availability, and user satisfaction.

- Lead weekly/monthly service reviews, highlighting performance trends, improvement actions, and escalations to leadership.

Vendor & Partner Management:

- Manage strategic partnerships with multiple IT vendors supporting various layers of the application stack - ensuring cost-effective, compliant, and high-quality delivery.

- Lead vendor onboarding, contract negotiations, performance reviews, and drive value through commercial and operational levers.

People Leadership & Team Building:

- Lead and manage a diverse technology operations team of FTEs and partner staff, fostering collaboration across L1, L2, and L3 supporters.

- Drive resource strategy, training, succession planning, and talent development to create a resilient, scalable, and accountable workforce.

- Encourage a culture of ownership, agility, and continuous improvement within the teams.

Governance, Risk & Compliance:

- Ensure all production activities comply with regulatory guidelines, audit requirements, and information security policies.

- Partner with risk and cybersecurity teams to manage production access controls, vulnerability remediation, and incident response.

- Lead efforts on BCP/DR drills, production readiness, and crisis simulation exercises.

Strategic Initiatives & Transformation:

- Collaborate with engineering, DevOps, and platform teams to transition from legacy to modern, cloud-native operational models.

- Lead the automation of production workflows, proactive alerting, and observability enhancements.

- Support enterprise-wide transformation programs (core banking upgrades, digital launches, mergers) from a production readiness perspective.

Budgeting & Purchase Order Tracking:

- Oversee budgeting and purchase order tracking to ensure efficient allocation and utilization of financial resources within the organization.

- Present proposals and financial reports to the IT Tech Spend Committee, fostering transparency and informed decision-making regarding technological investments and expenditures.