Director Application and Production Operations

RESPONSIBILITIES

Kforce has a client in Phoenix, AZ seeking a Director of Application & Production Operations to lead the strategy, governance, reliability, and operational support of business-critical applications and production services.

Job Description

The Director of Application & Production Operations is responsible for ensuring the availability, performance, security, and operational excellence of enterprise applications and production environments. This leader will oversee production support, incident and problem management, application operations, database services, release readiness, vendor management, and business continuity initiatives. The role will partner closely with Product, Engineering, Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity teams to support a complex technology ecosystem and drive continuous improvement.

Key responsibilities include establishing operational standards and service metrics, leading service restoration efforts, ensuring production readiness for releases and upgrades, managing disaster recovery and resiliency programs, overseeing integrations and enterprise processing services, and developing long-term technology operations strategies. This position also provides leadership for technical teams, manages relationships with third-party vendors and support partners, and drives operational alignment with organizational goals through effective planning, governance, and execution.

REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or related field preferred
• 10+ years of leadership experience in application operations, production support, technology operations, site reliability, or release management
• Experience leading managers and cross-functional technical teams supporting mission-critical environments
• Strong knowledge of incident management, production support, service ownership, operational readiness, and application lifecycle management
• Experience supporting complex environments including custom applications, SaaS platforms, databases, APIs, integrations, middleware, and enterprise processing solutions
• Proven ability to develop operational roadmaps, KPIs, SLAs, and executive-level reporting
• Experience managing vendors, contracts, budgets, software licensing, and support services
• Strong leadership, communication, stakeholder management, and decision-making skills
• Experience with SQL databases, ETL processes, batch processing, managed file transfer, APIs, and middleware technologies preferred
• Experience with monitoring and observability platforms such as Splunk, Dynatrace, Azure Monitor, Application Insights, PagerDuty, or ServiceNow preferred
• Knowledge of ITIL, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), business continuity, disaster recovery, and operational resiliency practices
• Experience supporting cloud and hybrid environments preferred

The pay range is the lowest to highest compensation we reasonably in good faith believe we would pay at posting for this role. We may ultimately pay more or less than this range. Employee pay is based on factors like relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, seniority, location, performance, union contract and business needs. This range may be modified in the future.
We offer comprehensive benefits including medical/dental/vision insurance, HSA, FSA, 401(k), and life, disability & ADD insurance to eligible employees. Salaried personnel receive paid time off. Hourly employees are not eligible for paid time off unless required by law. Hourly employees on a Service Contract Act project are eligible for paid sick leave.

Note: Pay is not considered compensation until it is earned, vested and determinable. The amount and availability of any compensation remains in Kforce's sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified in its discretion consistent with the law. This job is not eligible for bonuses, incentives or commissions. Kforce is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

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