Applications Operations Team Lead

Application Operations Team Lead

Milton CAT is seeking a dynamic and experienced Application Operations Team Lead. This role is responsible for the day-to-day operational stability, reliability, and support of critical enterprise applications. This role serves as the primary owner of application operations, ensuring incidents are managed effectively, releases are coordinated smoothly, methodology is defined, and applications are monitored proactively to prevent disruptions.

This is a hands-on team lead role that balances operational leadership with direct engagement in incident resolution, agile delivery, release coordination, and process definition. The role partners closely with Application Platform Managers, the Platform & Integrations team, I&O, the Service Desk, and business stakeholders to ensure enterprise applications operate reliably and predictably.

Responsibilities include:

• Incident and Problem Management
• Coordinate, own, and manage critical incidents for enterprise applications.
• Manages support for critical enterprise systems when issues cannot be resolved by the Service Desk.
• Lead incident triage, escalation, communication, and resolution for high-impact application issues.
• Drive problem management and root-cause analysis to prevent recurrence.
• Application Operations & Process Definition/Management
• Establish and continuously improve standard operating procedures for application support.
• Create and maintain repeatable standard RFCs for low-risk changes.
• Ensure operational processes align with IT service management standards.
• Drive consistency across enterprise applications around documentation standards.
• Become the SME for all things ITSM for enterprise applications.
• Agile Delivery & Backlog Management
• Own and drive the adoption and continuous improvement of agile ways of working across the Enterprise Applications portfolio.
• Serve as the operational owner across the Enterprise Applications portfolio, defining and institutionalizing how work is executed, including the rollout and governance of agile delivery practices.
• Facilitate and/or oversee core agile ceremonies including backlog refinement, sprint planning, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
• Establish and enforce standards for backlog hygiene, including definition of ready/done, prioritization frameworks, and documentation quality.
• Drive cross-team coordination to manage dependencies across application, integration, and platform teams.
• Track and report on sprint performance, team velocity, and delivery outcomes, using metrics to continuously improve planning accuracy and execution.
• Application & Business Process Monitoring
• Own application and business process monitoring for critical workflows.
• Partner with the Platform & Integrations team to define alerts and dashboards.
• Proactively identify risks related to performance, availability, and business impact.
• Release Management Execution
• Own release execution including planning, scheduling, coordinating, and communication.
• Coordinate releases across application, integration, and platform teams.
• Ensure release readiness and minimize business disruption.
• User Support & SLA Management
• Ensure application support meets defined service level agreements (SLAs).
• Track and report incident and support metrics.
• Act as an escalation point for business stakeholders.
• Vendor Management and People Leadership
• Serve as the primary point of contact for assigned technology vendors supporting enterprise applications, managing day-to-day relationships and escalation paths.
• Manage vendor-led implementations, integrations, and proof-of-concept initiatives, ensuring delivery aligns with scope, timeline, and quality expectations.
• Own vendor performance management, including SLAs, KPIs, uptime, support responsiveness, release quality, and adherence to contractual commitments.
• Identify opportunities to rationalize vendors, reduce redundancy, and improve total cost of ownership across the sales and service application ecosystem.
• Drive vendor selection, contract negotiations, renewals, and licensing optimization
• Build and lead a small application operations team consisting of both internal and external resources.

Qualifications include:

• 7+ years supporting enterprise business applications in production.
• 3+ years in application operations or IT service management leadership.
• ITIL certification - strong experience with incident, problem, change, and release management.
• Proven ability to manage high-severity incidents.
• Experience managing teams and/or external vendors.
• Experience with Microsoft platforms including Power BI, Power Platform, Fabric, Dynamics Customer Engagement, Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, and/or AX2012.
• Experience with monitoring frameworks and operational KPIs beneficial
• Ability to work a hybrid schedule with 2-3 days in an office location (Milford, MA, Londonderry, NH or Clifton Park, NY)

This job description is not intended to be all-inclusive. Your supervisor may request and assign similar duties.

Resumes that are mailed, emailed or hand-delivered to Milton CAT or any employee will not be considered. You must apply online. A background check and drug test are required as part of our pre-employment process.

Milton CAT is an equal opportunity employer that values the strength diversity brings to the workplace. We encourage applications from individuals with disabilities, minorities, veterans, and women. Applicants receive fair and impartial consideration without regard to race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, handicap, disability, veteran status, genetic data, or other legally protected status. We base all employment decisions to further this principle of equal employment opportunity. VEVRAA Federal Contractor. EEO/AA employer. Milton CAT is a Drug-Free workplace.