Solution Engineering Manager, Application MaintenanceLocation: Remote - EST hours 9am-5pm
Schedule: Contract, 40 hours / week
Function: Information Technology
Top 3 Skills1. Utility CIS / Meter-to-Cash Application ExperienceDeep experience supporting and managing
large-scale Customer Information Systems (CIS), Customer Billing, and Meter-to-Cash applications within the utility industry.
Customer/1 experience is NOT required. Candidates must, however, have significant experience with a comparable utility CIS platform such as:
- Customer/1
- CSS
- CRIS
- SAP IS-U
- Oracle Utilities CC&B
- Kraken
- Other enterprise utility CIS / billing platforms
The key requirement is a strong understanding of the operational complexities surrounding
utility customer care, billing, payments, collections, meter-to-cash, and related customer processes.
2. Enterprise Application Maintenance & Operational Leadership10+ years of experience supporting business-critical enterprise applications, including leadership responsibility for
production support, application stability, availability, resiliency, incident management, problem management, change/release management, and continuous improvement.
Candidates should have experience leading large application support organizations and managing systems where outages or performance issues can have significant business and customer impact.
3. Managed Services, Vendor & Team LeadershipStrong experience managing
managed service providers, offshore teams, technology vendors, and internal application support organizations.
The ideal candidate will be comfortable holding strategic partners accountable to SLAs and contractual commitments while managing operational KPIs, staffing plans, budgets, executive communications, and service improvement initiatives.
Ideal ProfileThe ideal candidate is a
senior application maintenance and operations leader with deep utility CIS experience who has owned the ongoing health and support of large, business-critical customer and billing platforms.
This person
does not need direct Customer/1 experience, but they must understand the utility CIS environment and have worked extensively with a comparable platform such as
SAP IS-U, Oracle Utilities CC&B, Kraken, CSS, CRIS, or another enterprise utility billing/CIS solution.
They should bring a combination of
application operations leadership, ITIL/service management, managed services governance, incident and problem management, regulatory awareness, and strong executive communication skills. This is someone who can oversee the day-to-day operational environment while also driving automation, technical debt reduction, service improvements, and longer-term application strategy.
Role SummaryWe are seeking an experienced
Solution Engineering Manager - Application Maintenance to own the operational health, maintenance, support, stability, performance, and continuous improvement of a large
Customer Information Systems and Meter-to-Cash application portfolio.
This individual will provide leadership across internal application teams, managed service providers, offshore resources, and technology partners while ensuring business continuity, regulatory compliance, and consistent service performance.
The role will be accountable for the end-to-end support strategy of business-critical customer and billing applications, including
application availability, incident and problem management, change and release governance, vendor performance, operational risk, service transition, and continuous improvement.
Key ResponsibilitiesApplication Maintenance & Operational Leadership- Own application maintenance operations across the Customer Billing, CIS, and Meter-to-Cash portfolio.
- Partner with managed service providers, application teams, infrastructure teams, and shared service organizations to maintain reliable application operations.
- Ensure applications meet established business requirements, service-level agreements, and performance expectations.
- Maintain accountability for application availability, stability, resiliency, and service performance.
- Establish and monitor operational KPIs, SLAs, OLAs, incident trends, backlog health, and customer satisfaction measures.
- Lead regular operational reviews and ensure production issues are resolved effectively.
- Maintain operational readiness, supportability, monitoring, and documentation standards across the application portfolio.
Incident, Problem & Change Management- Lead Major Incident Management activities involving critical customer and billing applications.
- Provide clear executive and stakeholder communication during significant service disruptions.
- Ensure Root Cause Analysis (RCA) activities are completed and corrective actions are implemented.
- Drive proactive problem management to identify recurring issues and prevent future disruptions.
- Govern production changes and releases to minimize operational and customer risk.
- Establish corrective and preventative actions based on application performance and incident trends.
Vendor & Managed Service Governance- Manage strategic relationships with major managed service providers and technology partners.
- Ensure vendors deliver against contractual obligations, SLAs, KPIs, and service commitments.
- Conduct supplier performance reviews and establish remediation plans when service expectations are not met.
- Review and approve staffing plans, succession plans, and resource strategies across application support organizations.
- Manage distributed and offshore support teams.
- Build effective relationships across internal technology teams, business stakeholders, vendors, and executive leadership.
Regulatory, Compliance & Risk Management- Ensure applications and support processes comply with regulatory requirements, cybersecurity standards, audit controls, and corporate governance policies.
- Support internal and external audits, including applicable utility regulatory, SOX, data privacy, and cybersecurity assessments.
- Identify and manage operational and technology risks.
- Develop and oversee mitigation plans through completion.
- Ensure appropriate controls and documentation are maintained across the application portfolio.
Continuous Improvement & Automation- Drive continuous improvement across application maintenance processes, tooling, and operating models.
- Identify opportunities to reduce manual effort and improve application support efficiency.
- Introduce AI, AIOps, automation, monitoring, and operational tooling where appropriate.
- Drive reduction of recurring incidents through automation and proactive monitoring.
- Lead technical debt reduction and application lifecycle management initiatives.
- Research industry trends and emerging technologies and provide strategic recommendations to leadership.
Service Transition & Delivery Partnership- Partner with product, engineering, architecture, and project delivery teams to transition new capabilities into production.
- Establish operational acceptance criteria for new solutions and enhancements.
- Ensure appropriate documentation, monitoring, support processes, and resource models are established before deployment.
- Ensure technical and product architectures remain aligned with business objectives.
- Partner with engineering and architecture teams to ensure solutions are supportable, scalable, resilient, and secure.
Financial & Strategic Management- Develop and manage operational budgets and financial plans.
- Manage vendor spend, forecasts, and resource investments.
- Establish financial targets in partnership with business and technology leadership.
- Identify opportunities to improve operational efficiency and reduce overall support costs.
People Leadership- Lead and develop application managers, analysts, and support professionals.
- Build a culture centered on accountability, operational excellence, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
- Coach and mentor team members while developing organizational capability.
- Promote knowledge sharing and succession planning across application support teams.
- Lead technology resources distributed across multiple U.S. and offshore locations.
Required Qualifications- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field; Master's degree preferred.
- 10+ years of experience supporting large-scale, business-critical enterprise applications in production environments.
- 5+ years of application maintenance, production support, or technology leadership experience preferred.
- Significant experience supporting utility CIS, Customer Billing, or Meter-to-Cash applications.
- Experience with a major utility CIS platform such as Customer/1, SAP IS-U, Oracle Utilities CC&B, Kraken, CSS, CRIS, or a comparable platform.
- Experience managing managed service providers and offshore application support teams.
- Strong experience with Incident, Problem, Change, and Release Management.
- Knowledge of ITIL Service Management practices.
- Experience supporting regulatory, compliance, cybersecurity, and audit requirements.
- Experience managing operational budgets, forecasts, vendor spend, and resource planning.
- Strong understanding of Agile delivery methodologies, including Scrum and Kanban.
- Demonstrated ability to lead large, distributed technology teams.
- Strong executive communication and presentation skills.
- Highly developed negotiation, facilitation, stakeholder management, and consensus-building skills.
Preferred Qualifications- Deep understanding of utility Customer Care, Billing, Collections, Payments, Supplier Services, and Meter-to-Cash processes.
- Experience with multiple utility CIS platforms or major CIS transformation programs.
- ITIL Foundation, Managing Professional, or Strategic Leader certification.
- PMP, Scrum Master, SAFe, or Agile certification.
- Experience with ServiceNow, Splunk, Dynatrace, AppDynamics, or comparable operational monitoring platforms.
- Lean Six Sigma certification or demonstrated operational excellence experience.
- Experience implementing AI-enabled support, AIOps, intelligent monitoring, or application support automation.
- Experience operating within highly regulated enterprise environments.
Key Competencies- Application Operations Leadership
- Utility CIS / Meter-to-Cash Expertise
- Managed Services Governance
- Incident & Problem Management
- Operational Excellence
- Vendor Management
- Executive Communication
- Regulatory & Risk Management
- Financial Management
- Continuous Improvement & Automation
- People Leadership
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