Water Services Applications Manager (Lead Information Technician Systems Specialist

About This Position

The City of Phoenix Water Services Department (WSD) Technology Services Division is seeking a senior-level Applications Manager to provide strategic oversight and operational leadership for the enterprise application portfolio supporting municipal water and wastewater services. This role is responsible for guiding application lifecycle strategy, modernization planning, vendor engagement, and portfolio optimization, ensuring applications align with organizational priorities and deliver measurable business outcomes.

The Applications Manager serves as a strategic portfolio leader with deep technical fluency, capable of aligning technology investments with business objectives, managing risk, and ensuring the long-term sustainability, security, and reliability of business-critical applications. While not a hands‑on developer, the role requires sufficient technical depth to effectively oversee engineering teams, assess architectural and lifecycle decisions, and guide complex technical initiatives.

• Manage and oversee an enterprise application portfolio supporting critical business and operational functions.
• Establish and maintain governance for application lifecycle, including classification, health assessment, and risk evaluation.
• Lead application portfolio rationalization efforts, including consolidation, modernization, replacement, or retirement of applications.
• Ensure applications are vendor-supported, compliant with City standards, and aligned with security and architecture requirements.

• Develop and maintain strategic lifecycle plans and roadmaps addressing sustainment, upgrades, modernization, and end-of-life activities.
• Evaluate technical debt, obsolescence risk, operational impact, and cost to support informed investment decisions.
• Coordinate lifecycle planning across application teams, vendors, and business stakeholders.
• Align application strategies with business objectives and desired outcomes.
• Engage stakeholders to understand their business goals, priorities, and desired outcomes.
• Assess system capabilities and limitations.
• Develop actionable initiatives to address their needs and deliver measurable results.

• Provide oversight into development, configuration, integration, testing, deployment, and production support.
• Review technical designs, upgrade strategies, and implementation approaches to ensure stability, scalability, and maintainability.
• Guide technical staff and vendors during complex incidents, upgrades, and high-risk changes.
• Ensure consistent practices across development, change management, and production releases.
• Work tracking, metrics & executive reporting.
• Establish formal mechanisms to track staff and vendor work, project plans, and operational tasks.
• Monitor progress to ensure alignment with departmental priorities, timelines, and service commitments.
• Develop and deliver weekly executive-level reports summarizing application health, risks, milestones, and resource utilization.
• Utilize dashboards and reporting tools (e.g., Power BI) to provide visibility into work progress and portfolio status.
• Identify risks, issues, and resource constraints and implement corrective actions as needed.

• Oversee vendor relationships supporting enterprise applications.
• Lead contract renewals, pricing reviews, and scope management for applications.
• Develop and manage operational budgets and Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) related to application modernization or expansion.
• Coordinate with finance and procurement teams on funding strategies, budget adjustments, and long-term cost planning.
• Governance, continuity & compliance.
• Serve as liaison for disaster recovery, business continuity, and audit activities related to the application portfolio.
• Ensure applications meet continuity of operations requirements and recovery objectives.
• Coordinate audit documentation, responses, and remediation activities. Procurement & Solution Evaluation
  • Participate in procurement and evaluation of application solutions and services.
  • Review business requirements and evaluate proposed…