Application Support Engineer

Analyst/Developer – Specialty 2 (Application Ops Tier 2 Support) - Application Support Engineer

Job Overview

CLIENT is seeking an Analyst/Developer – Specialty 2 to provide Tier 2 Application Operations Support for cloud-based applications. The role will focus on application support, troubleshooting, monitoring, incident resolution, database support, API/data-flow troubleshooting, and developing automation to improve application availability and performance.

Location & Work Schedule

• Location: Chicago or Peoria, IL
• Work Model: Hybrid, currently 2 days onsite per week
• Future Requirement: May transition to 5 days onsite
• Contract Duration: 12 months

Key Responsibilities

• Triage and resolve Tier 2 application support tickets according to defined SLAs.
• Investigate and resolve critical application and technical issues, including occasional off-shift and weekend support calls.
• Analyze application failures using statistical analysis, testing, and troubleshooting techniques.
• Identify, manage, document, and communicate issue resolutions to requestors.
• Monitor application availability and performance.
• Troubleshoot issues across UI, APIs, databases, and data flows.
• Develop Python/scripts and automation tools to detect and correct application issues.
• Develop and enhance monitoring and alerting capabilities for proactive issue detection.
• Support relational databases, SQL queries, and reporting, preferably using Snowflake.
• Work with AWS cloud services and troubleshoot cloud-based applications.
• Support high-availability architectures and understand autoscaling concepts.
• Collaborate with internal teams and occasionally communicate with Caterpillar dealers.

Required Technical Skills

• 2–4+ years of hands-on Application Support, preferably supporting cloud-based applications.
• Strong experience with relational databases, SQL, querying, and database reporting; Snowflake preferred.
• Hands-on experience with AWS services, including:
• EC2, S3, VPC, Route 53, RDS
• CloudFormation, DynamoDB, Lambda
• CloudWatch, IAM, Certificate Manager
• ELB, EBS, ECS, CloudFront/WAF
• SQS, SNS, SES
• Experience troubleshooting APIs, UI issues, and application data flows.
• Experience with application monitoring tools, such as ThousandEyes, AppDynamics, Grafana, or similar.
• Experience with Python or another scripting language for automation.
• Experience supporting high-availability applications/architectures.
• Background in SRE / Site Reliability Engineering, particularly application availability and performance improvement.
• Experience with data management, data engineering, or data operations.
• Familiarity with ADO/Azure DevOps pipeline frameworks.
• Working knowledge of Python, PowerShell, SQL, and JSON.
• Working knowledge of AWS autoscaling concepts/features; hands-on autoscaling support is not required.

Top 3 Skills

1. Cloud Application Support / Tier 2 Troubleshooting
2. AWS + SQL/Snowflake
3. Python Scripting & Application Monitoring

Education & Experience

Option 1:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree with 2–4 years of relevant experience.

Option 2:

• Technical certification with 6–8+ years of relevant experience may be considered.

Soft Skills

• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving abilities.
• Effective communication with technical teams and application users.
• Ability to manage support tickets according to SLAs.
• Proactive approach to identifying recurring application issues.
• Strong documentation and follow-up skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a support/operations environment.

Work Environment

The position is based in Chicago or Peoria, Illinois, with a hybrid schedule of approximately 2 days onsite per week initially. The onsite requirement may increase to 5 days per week in the future.

Candidates who are not currently local but are willing to relocate at their own expense and be onsite from Day 1 should clearly indicate their relocation commitment on their resume.

Interview Process

• 1 round initially
• Virtual/phone interview
• Panel interview
• A second round may be requested if needed