Associate Director - Production Support

Associate Director Production Support

Location: Hyderabad
Experience: 18+ Years
Employment Type: Full-time
Function: Technology / IT Operations / Application Production Support

Job Summary

We are looking for an experienced Associate Director – Production Support to lead enterprise application production support and operational governance across Tier 1 and Tier 2 digital platforms.

The role will be responsible for defining and executing the offshore production support strategy, driving application stability and resilience, leading major incident management, and ensuring operational excellence across a highly interconnected digital ecosystem.

The successful candidate will lead a Hyderabad-based organization comprising FTEs, contractors, and strategic partners, while partnering with engineering, SRE, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and business stakeholders to improve service reliability, reduce operational risk, and accelerate AI and automation-led transformation.

Key Responsibilities

1. Production Support Leadership & Operational Governance

• Define and execute the offshore production support strategy and target operating model across enterprise digital platforms.
• Establish governance frameworks, service standards, decision rights, risk controls, and executive review mechanisms.
• Drive portfolio-level objectives and performance measures covering availability, resilience, customer experience, regulatory compliance, and SLA attainment.
• Lead cross-platform prioritization and investment decisions based on business impact, operational risk, capacity, and modernization priorities.
• Provide executive-level accountability for service health, operational risks, and transformation outcomes.

2. Major Incident & Problem Management

• Provide leadership and decision-making oversight for L1.5, L2, and L3 production incidents, ensuring timely impact assessment, escalation, communication, and recovery.
• Establish and govern an integrated major incident, problem, and crisis management framework across application, infrastructure, security, vendor, and business teams.
• Drive effective root cause analysis (RCA), permanent corrective actions, and closure of systemic issues.
• Lead reliability reviews to identify recurring incidents, operational risks, concentration risks, and critical dependencies.
• Ensure high-severity incidents are managed with clear ownership, mitigation plans, and timely executive communication.

3. Team Leadership & Delivery Management

• Build and lead a multi-platform production support organization comprising Hyderabad-based FTEs, contractors, and strategic partners.
• Define organizational structures, leadership roles, workforce strategy, and sourcing models to deliver resilient 247 support.
• Develop leadership capability through succession planning, coaching, and targeted technical and operational development.
• Establish outcome-based accountability across teams, fostering ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Own workforce capacity planning, financial stewardship, vendor performance, and operational readiness for business-critical applications.

4. AI, Automation & Operational Modernization

• Define and execute the AI, automation, observability, and operational modernization roadmap for L2 production support.
• Sponsor initiatives such as intelligent incident triage, event correlation, predictive detection, automated remediation, and self-healing operations.
• Partner with engineering, SRE, architecture, data, cybersecurity, and platform teams to embed reliability and operational readiness into the delivery lifecycle.
• Establish measurable outcomes across incident prevention, MTTR reduction, automation adoption, productivity, service quality, and cost efficiency.
• Promote responsible AI adoption, operational controls, risk management, and sustainable support practices.

5. Stakeholder & Vendor Management

• Act as the senior offshore partner and escalation point for onshore technology and business leaders, product teams, SRE, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and strategic vendors.
• Translate business priorities and customer impact into operational strategy, investment proposals, and transformation roadmaps.
• Lead executive service reviews covering performance, risks, capacity, financials, transformation progress, and decisions required.
• Influence cross-functional teams to resolve systemic dependencies and improve business-critical digital journeys.
• Own strategic vendor and partner governance, including service quality, commercial performance, accountability, and continuous value improvement.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• 18+ years of experience in Application Production Support, IT Operations, Application Operations, or related technology operations functions.
• Minimum 10 years of experience in a leadership role managing large-scale production support or application operations teams.
• Strong experience supporting large-scale digital platforms, including web, mobile, APIs, or enterprise applications in a 247 environment.
• Proven expertise in Major Incident Management, Problem Management, cross-functional escalation, and executive stakeholder communications.
• Experience managing offshore delivery organizations comprising FTEs, contractors, and strategic partners.
• Strong understanding of ITIL, SRE, operational excellence, service reliability, and production support governance.
• Demonstrated ability to drive operational performance, service stability, risk management, and continuous improvement.
• Strong executive communication, decision-making, and leadership skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting healthcare, financial services, or other regulated digital platforms.
• Exposure to AI-driven operations, AIOps, automation, and L2/L3 operational efficiency initiatives.
• Familiarity with observability, monitoring, APM, and ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow.
• Experience implementing automated remediation, event correlation, predictive monitoring, or self-healing capabilities.
• Experience managing large-scale technology transformation and operational modernization programs.

Key Skills

Application Production Support | Application Operations | IT Operations | Production Support Leadership | Major Incident Management | Problem Management | ITIL | SRE | Operational Excellence | 247 Operations | L2/L3 Support | Digital Platforms | Service Reliability | Incident Management | RCA | Automation | AIOps | Observability | ServiceNow | Vendor Management | Offshore Operations | Executive Stakeholder Management