Head of Application Support

Who You'll Work With:

Fixed Income Investment Technology ("FIIT") group builds software that the Fixed Income business of AB uses in performing functions such as Fundamental Research, Quantitative research, Portfolio Management, Order Generation, Trading and Middle-office and Back-Office operations. It partners with business to understand their challenges and help them by providing innovative technology solutions. We re-engineer the process where applicable in collaboration with business to help scale their business and be efficient in this dynamic market conditions. Our eco-system consists of multiple sub-systems that receives data from multiple up-stream systems, processes them and then distributes it to internal and external downstream systems. Our legacy tech-stack written with Windows Forms is being re-written with Angular, .Net APIs and Azure based tech-stack. We also have other vendor products like Minerva and Sentinel, which are used in part to do these functions as well.

We are seeking a Nashville based senior professional to join our Fixed Income Investment Technology team. He /she will be heading team responsible for being the first line of support for production problems, researching complex issues, and prioritizing our developer budget for fixing recurring problems.

What You'll Do:

As a Senior Production Support Engineer, he/she will be responsible for ensuring the stability, availability, and performance of production systems and applications. He/she will work closely with cross-functional teams, including development, operations, and business stakeholders, to troubleshoot issues, provide technical support, and implement proactive measures to prevent system failures. This role will involve monitoring system health, investigating incidents, coordinating with internal and external teams, and contributing to the continuous improvement of production support processes.

Describe the applications and business or enterprise functions the role supports:

The primary project that the candidate will contribute to all modules within Fixed Income technology. These modules support Senior Portfolio Managers, Portfolio Managers, Assistant Portfolio Managers, Fundamental and Quantitative research analysts, Traders, Middle-office, and Operations functions.

The key job responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

System Monitoring and Incident Management:

• Monitor production systems and applications to ensure optimal performance, availability, and reliability.
• Respond to and resolve production incidents promptly, investigating root causes and implementing preventive measures.
• Follow incident management processes, including incident triage, escalation, resolution, and post-incident analysis.
• Collaborate with development teams to ensure the timely resolution of production issues.

Technical Support and Troubleshooting:

• Provide technical support and guidance to internal stakeholders, including end-users, operations teams, and developers.
• Investigate and troubleshoot complex system issues, perform impact analysis, and propose solutions or workarounds.
• Utilize monitoring and diagnostic tools to identify performance bottlenecks, system errors, and potential vulnerabilities.
• Collaborate with vendors and third-party providers to resolve issues and coordinate support activities.

Release Management and Deployment Support:

• Collaborate with development teams to ensure smooth and error-free production deployments.
• Review release plans, conduct risk assessments, and validate deployment readiness.
• Perform pre-production and post-deployment checks to verify system functionality and data integrity.
• Work with DevOps and release management teams to automate deployment processes and streamline release activities.

Documentation and Knowledge Management:

• Maintain accurate and up-to-date documentation related to system configurations, troubleshooting procedures, and known issues.
• Contribute to the knowledge base and share best practices with the production support team and relevant stakeholders.
• Provide training and knowledge transfer sessions to junior support engineers and other team members.

Continuous Improvement:

• Identify opportunities for process improvement, automation, and optimization in production support activities.
• Propose and implement proactive measures to enhance system stability, performance, and availability.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement monitoring tools, alerting mechanisms, and incident response automation.

KPI and SLA reporting

• Identify, Maintain and report accurate and real-time KPIs
• Report SLA to various stakeholders

Project Management

• Ability to manage projects that fixes top production support incidents

Disaster Recovery coordination

• Conduct annual DR with IT and Business
• Maintain accurate runbooks to fail-over to DR as needed with minimal business interruption

What We're Looking For:

• 10+ years of experience in production support, technical support, or related roles.
• Strong knowledge of application and system troubleshooting methodologies.
• Experience in incident management, problem management, and root cause analysis.
• Proficiency in UNIX/Linux environments and shell scripting.
• Proficiency with relational databases (e.g., Oracle, MySQL) and SQL querying.
• Familiarity with web servers, application servers, and network protocols.
• Experience with monitoring tools such as Nagios, Zabbix, or Splunk.
• Experience with scheduling tools such as Control-M and Airflow
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills to collaborate effectively with stakeholders.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and handle multiple priorities.
• Knowledge of ITIL framework and IT service management practices is a plus.
• Certifications in relevant areas (e.g., ITIL, incident management) are advantageous.

Who We Are:

We are a leading global investment management firm offering high-quality research and diversified investment services to institutional clients, retail investors, and private-wealth clients in major markets around the globe. With over 4,000 employees across 57 locations operating in 26 countries and jurisdictions, our ambition is simple: to be the most trusted investment firm in the world. We realize that it's our people who give us a competitive advantage and drive success in the market, and our goal is to create an inclusive culture that rewards hard work.

Our culture of intellectual curiosity and collaboration creates an environment where you can thrive and do your best work. Whether you're producing thought-provoking research, identifying compelling investment opportunities, infusing new technologies into our business or providing thoughtful advice to our clients, we are fully invested in you. If you're ready to challenge your limits and empower your career, join us!

AB does not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, ancestry, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, citizenship status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military or veteran status or any other basis that is prohibited by applicable law. AB's policies, as well as practices, seek to ensure that employment opportunities are available to all employees and applicants, based solely on job-related criteria.

Nashville, Tennessee