Global Production Support Lead - xReliability

Role: Production Support Manager

Experience: 10 or 10+ Years

Location: Pune

Job Description:

Role Expectation

24x7 Operations & Service Stability

• Own end-to-end production support for MFT platforms (e.g.,
IBM Sterling B2B Integrator
, IBM Sterling Connect:Direct etc.)

• Ensure high availability, SLA adherence, and system resilience through data-led operational governance (availability, incident trends, MTTR, backlog health)

• Manage global shift model with clear handovers

Team Leadership & People Management

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing 24x7 global team

• Manage hiring, performance reviews, and career development using objective performance indicators (quality, responsiveness, knowledge contribution, automation adoption)

• Ensure team readiness via training, SOPs, and runbooks with competency tracking and continuous feedback loops

Incident & Problem Management

• Lead resolution of P1/P2 incidents, ensuring minimal business impact

• Drive RCA (Root Cause Analysis) and permanent fixes

• Reduce repeat incidents through problem management and automation

Change & Release Management

• Govern production changes aligned with ITIL practices

• Ensure risk assessment, testing validation, and rollback readiness using evidence-based risk scoring (change failure rate, historical defect patterns, service criticality)

• Represent MFT in Change Advisory Board and ensure safe deployments

Stakeholder & Business Engagement

• Act as primary contact for business, partners, and vendors

• Provide status updates, incident communications, and service reporting with clear KPIs and trend insights

• Build strong relationships with upstream/downstream application teams, using data to align priorities and drive decisions

Monitoring & Automation

• Leverage tools like Splunk
, App Dynamics
, Thousand Eyes

• Promote proactive monitoring, alert tuning, and auto-remediation

• Drive self-healing capabilities and reduce manual effort, tracking automation coverage and hours saved

Capacity & Performance Management

• Monitor file transfer volumes, throughput, and system capacity

• Plan scaling strategies for peak loads and business growth

Continuous Improvement & Transformation

• Incident reduction

• Shift-left (knowledge, automation)

• Process optimization

• Introduce AI/automation for predictive issue detection, validated via precision/recall, reduction in P1/P2s, and early-warning effectiveness

Skills Required

Essential

• 12+ years of experience in production support, with 5+ years in leading production support team (including people management)
• Strategic thinking / planning and ensuring alignment with organizational objectives. Ability to drive process improvements and innovation.
• Able to work with high level of autonomy, make decisions independently and provide direction to the function.
• Strong leadership and team management skills (including people / performance management) with a proven track record of leading high-performing geographically dispersed teams.
• Conduct root cause analysis for major incidents and ensure follow-up actions are completed and define processes to prevent recurring issues.
• Strong knowledge of ITSM (Incident, Problem & Change) processes and tools.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English with the ability to translate complex technical information into an engaging and understandable format for customers and business leaders.
• Data-driven decision-making capability:
  Able to use operational metrics, service telemetry, and trend analysis to prioritise work, assess risk, measure outcomes, and drive continuous improvement (e.g., SLA/OLA performance, MTTR, incident recurrence, change failure rate, capacity trends)
• A strong level of IT literacy, including a broad knowledge of IT infrastructure (operating systems, databases, networking, security).

Desirable

• Understanding of MFT Products like IBM Sterling B2B Integrator / Sterling File Gateway, IBM Sterling Connect:
  
  Direct etc.
• Good knowledge of file transfer protocols (SFTP, FTPS, AS2, HTTPS, etc.) and encryption standards (PGP, TLS) and awareness of Databases, Networks etc.
• Experience building and using service dashboards/analytics (e.g., Splunk dashboards, KPI packs, operational scorecards) to support stakeholder reporting and decision-making
• Certified ITIL Foundation or higher.
• Experience in banking/financial services or large enterprise environments.