Director Application and Production Operations

DescriptionKforce has a client in Phoenix, AZ seeking a Director of Application & Production Operations to lead the strategy, governance, reliability, and operational support of business-critical applications and production services.Job Description:The Director of Application & Production Operations is responsible for ensuring the availability, performance, security, and operational excellence of enterprise applications and production environments. This leader will oversee production support, incident and problem management, application operations, database services, release readiness, vendor management, and business continuity initiatives.The role will partner closely with Product, Engineering, Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity teams to support a complex technology ecosystem and drive continuous improvement. Key responsibilities include establishing operational standards and service metrics, leading service restoration efforts, ensuring production readiness for releases and upgrades, managing disaster recovery and resiliency programs, overseeing integrations and enterprise processing services, and developing long-term technology operations strategies.This position also provides leadership for technical teams, manages relationships with third-party vendors and support partners, and drives operational alignment with organizational goals through effective planning, governance, and execution.Requirements* Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or related field preferred* 10+ years of leadership experience in application operations, production support, technology operations, site reliability, or release management* Experience leading managers and cross-functional technical teams supporting mission-critical environments* Strong knowledge of incident management, production support, service ownership, operational readiness, and application lifecycle management* Experience supporting complex environments including custom applications, SaaS platforms, databases, APIs, integrations, middleware, and enterprise processing solutions* Proven ability to develop operational roadmaps, KPIs, SLAs, and executive-level reporting* Experience managing vendors, contracts, budgets, software licensing, and support services* Strong leadership, communication, stakeholder management, and decision-making skills* Experience with SQL databases, ETL processes, batch processing, managed file transfer, APIs, and middleware technologies preferred* Experience with monitoring and observability platforms such as Splunk, Dynatrace, Azure Monitor, Application Insights, PagerDuty, or ServiceNow preferred* Knowledge of ITIL, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), business continuity, disaster recovery, and operational resiliency practices* Experience supporting cloud and hybrid environments preferredJob TypeContractCompensation53 - $65