Incident Manager - Banking & Payments

About the Role:

Remote, India - Long-Term Contract

We are looking for an experienced Incident Manager to lead the end-to-end management of major and critical incidents impacting production services within the banking and payments environment.

The ideal candidate will be responsible for driving rapid service restoration, coordinating cross-functional technical teams, maintaining clear stakeholder communication, and ensuring effective post-incident follow-up.

The role requires strong leadership, communication, and decision-making skills, with the ability to manage high-impact incidents in a fast-paced production environment.

Key Responsibilities:

- Own and manage the end-to-end lifecycle of major and critical incidents, from identification through resolution and closure.

- Lead major incident bridges and coordinate technical teams across application, infrastructure, database, network, security, and vendor functions.

- Drive timely troubleshooting and service restoration, ensuring incidents are managed within agreed SLAs.

- Establish clear roles, responsibilities, and action plans during major incidents to accelerate resolution.

- Provide timely and structured updates to business stakeholders, senior management, and relevant leadership teams throughout the incident lifecycle.

- Act as the central point of coordination and communication during high-severity production incidents.

- Ensure appropriate escalation and engagement of technical teams and third-party vendors when required.

- Track incident progress, risks, dependencies, and resolution actions through to closure.

- Drive Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and ensure corrective and preventive actions are identified, documented, and tracked to completion.

- Conduct Post-Incident Reviews (PIRs) for major incidents and identify opportunities to prevent recurrence.

- Monitor incident trends and recurring issues and recommend improvements to production support and operational processes.

- Maintain accurate incident records, timelines, communications, and supporting documentation.

- Ensure adherence to ITIL-based incident, problem, and change management processes.

- Develop and track key incident management metrics, including response time, resolution time, SLA adherence, and recurring incidents.

- Continuously improve the major incident management framework, processes, communication standards, and operational readiness.

Key Skills & Expertise:

- Major Incident Management

- ITIL / IT Service Management

- Production Operations

- Major Incident Bridge Management

- Service Restoration & Crisis Coordination

- Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

- Corrective & Preventive Actions (CAPA)

- Stakeholder Management

- Executive & Leadership Communication

- Incident Escalation & Coordination

- SLA & KPI Management

- Problem & Change Management

- Vendor Management

- Post-Incident Review (PIR)

- Banking & Payments Domain

Preferred Qualifications:

- 6 - 8 years of experience in Incident Management, Production Operations, IT Service Management, or related functions.

- Proven experience managing major and high-severity production incidents in business-critical environments.

- Strong understanding of ITIL incident, problem, and change management practices.

- Experience coordinating multiple technical teams during critical incidents and driving timely service restoration.

- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with both technical teams and senior business stakeholders.

- Strong analytical, decision-making, leadership, and problem-solving capabilities.

- Experience in banking, financial services, payments, or other highly regulated environments is preferred.