Applications Engineer Lead

Converge ICT Solutions Inc.; Pasig; On-site; PHP 1,674,000 - 2,567,000; Full time

Job summary

Converge ICT Solutions Inc. in Pasig, Philippines, is seeking an Application Support Engineer Lead to guide a team of L2/L3 Cadet Engineers. You will oversee incident triage, evidence collection, and vendor escalations, while promoting AI-assisted productivity with strict guardrails.

You will mentor juniors, shape runbooks and knowledge bases for legacy BSS on PowerBuilder, and ensure SLA adherence. This role blends deep technical troubleshooting with focused coaching in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, Engineering, or a related field.
• 4-6+ years of experience in Application Support (L2/L3) or Software Development, with at least 1-2 years in a senior, team lead, or supervisory capacity.
• Proven experience troubleshooting and maintaining legacy applications (e.g., PowerBuilder, older database patterns, complex stored procedures, batch jobs).
• Deep comfort with AI-assisted productivity tools (LLMs, Copilots) and the ability to evaluate AI-generated code/scripts for safety and accuracy.
• Strong background in structured troubleshooting, incident management, and working under high-pressure SLA environments.

Responsibilities

• Cadet Mentorship: Act as the primary technical mentor and coach for the Cadet Engineers, accelerating their transition from early-career graduates to proficient L2 support engineers.
• Skill Development: Design and oversee training paths for the cadets, specifically focusing on legacy application logic (BSS), structured debugging, and modern database patterns.
• Performance Management: Set clear KPIs regarding ticket quality, SLA compliance, and documentation standards. Conduct regular 1-on-1s and performance reviews.
• Resource Allocation: Manage team shifts, on-call schedules, and ticket assignments to ensure optimal coverage and prevent burnout.
• Review 'evidence packs' created by Cadets before escalation to L3 vendors, ensuring steps to reproduce, logs, and correlation IDs are flawless.
• Oversee the escalation clocks and communication cadences with the Service Control Tower and incident bridges during P1/P2 crises.
• Represent the Cadet team on major incident bridges, providing calm leadership, clear technical updates, and disciplined execution.
• Oversee the validation of vendor-provided hotfixes in UAT/pre-prod environments before signing off on production deployment.
• Serve as the ultimate gatekeeper for the team's 'vibe coding' outputs. Ensure no Cadet pastes AI-generated code directly into production without strict review.
• Review and approve AI-generated SQL queries, automation scripts, and troubleshooting trees tested by Cadets in safe environments.
• Standardize and maintain the team's reusable library of validated AI prompts, templates, and scripts to improve team velocity safely.
• Ensure team compliance with data security policies (e.g., ensuring no proprietary code or PII is pasted into public AI models).
• Lead the initiative to transform legacy BSS knowledge into highly accurate, modern runbooks and Known Error Databases (KEDB).
• Analyze ticket trends to identify recurring system bugs. Raise Problem records and collaborate with L3/Development teams to drive permanent remediation.
• Partner with L1 (Helpdesk/NOC) to build better documentation, enabling them to resolve basic issues and reduce unnecessary escalations to the Cadet team.
• Release & Hypercare Orchestration
• Operational Readiness
• Hypercare Command
• Direct team activities during hypercare windows, ensuring rapid triage of post-release anomalies and safeguarding critical business transactions.

Job description

Role SummaryApplication Support Engineer Lead responsible for guiding, mentoring, and managing a team of early-career L2 Cadet Engineers. This team supports critical business applications, including legacy Business Support Systems (BSS) built on PowerBuilder, alongside modern architectures.The Application Support Engineer Lead ensures operational excellence by overseeing incident triage, evidence collection, and vendor (L3) escalations. A defining aspect of this leadership role is governance over AI-assisted productivity. The Lead will champion the team's use of modern AI tools ('vibe coding') for drafting scripts, SQL queries, and runbooks, while strictly enforcing validation guardrails, security policies, and change controls. The ideal candidate balances deep technical troubleshooting roots with a passion for coaching junior talent into high-performing engineers.

Qualifications

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, Engineering, or a related field.
• 4-6+ years of experience in Application Support (L2/L3) or Software Development, with at least 1-2 years in a senior, team lead, or supervisory capacity.
• Proven experience troubleshooting and maintaining legacy applications (e.g., PowerBuilder, older database patterns, complex stored procedures, batch jobs).
• Deep comfort with AI-assisted productivity tools (LLMs, Copilots) and the ability to evaluate AI-generated code/scripts for safety and accuracy.
• Strong background in structured troubleshooting, incident management, and working under high-pressure SLA environments.

Certifications (Preferred)

• ITIL Foundation or ITIL Intermediate (Managing Professional stream)
• Cloud Fundamentals (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
• Advanced SQL or Database Administration certification

Key Responsibilities

Details

Team Leadership, Mentorship & Upskilling

Cadet Mentorship: Act as the primary technical mentor and coach for the Cadet Engineers, accelerating their transition from early-career graduates to proficient L2 support engineers.

Skill Development: Design and oversee training paths for the cadets, specifically focusing on legacy application logic (BSS), structured debugging, and modern database patterns.

Performance Management: Set clear KPIs regarding ticket quality, SLA compliance, and documentation standards. Conduct regular 1-on-1s and performance reviews.

Resource Allocation: Manage team shifts, on-call schedules, and ticket assignments to ensure optimal coverage and prevent burnout.

Incident Escalation & Vendor Governance

Gatekeeping & Quality Assurance

Review 'evidence packs' created by Cadets before escalation to L3 vendors, ensuring steps to reproduce, logs, and correlation IDs are flawless.

SLA & Clock Management

Oversee the escalation clocks and communication cadences with the Service Control Tower and incident bridges during P1/P2 crises.

Bridge Leadership

Represent the Cadet team on major incident bridges, providing calm leadership, clear technical updates, and disciplined execution.

Fix Validation

Oversee the validation of vendor-provided hotfixes in UAT/pre-prod environments before signing off on production deployment.

AI Governance & Guardrail Enforcement (Vibe Coding Oversight)

AI Policy Compliance

Serve as the ultimate gatekeeper for the team's 'vibe coding' outputs. Ensure no Cadet pastes AI-generated code directly into production without strict review.

Code & Script Review

Review and approve AI-generated SQL queries, automation scripts, and troubleshooting trees tested by Cadets in safe environments.

Prompt Library Curation

Standardize and maintain the team's reusable library of validated AI prompts, templates, and scripts to improve team velocity safely.

Risk Mitigation

Ensure team compliance with data security policies (e.g., ensuring no proprietary code or PII is pasted into public AI models).

Legacy System Stewardship & Continuous Improvement

Runbook Modernization

Lead the initiative to transform legacy BSS knowledge into highly accurate, modern runbooks and Known Error Databases (KEDB).

Problem Management

Analyze ticket trends to identify recurring system bugs. Raise Problem records and collaborate with L3/Development teams to drive permanent remediation.

Shift-Left Strategy

Partner with L1 (Helpdesk/NOC) to build better documentation, enabling them to resolve basic issues and reduce unnecessary escalations to the Cadet team.

Release & Hypercare Orchestration

Operational Readiness

Ensure the Cadet team is fully prepared for new software releases by reviewing smoke test checklists, cutover schedules, and rollback plans.

Hypercare Command

Direct team activities during hypercare windows, ensuring rapid triage of post-release anomalies and safeguarding critical business transactions.