Director, Application & Production Operations

Cambridge Investment Research, Inc.; Phoenix (AZ); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, vision, dental insurance

Life and long-term disability coverage

401K with company matching

Vacation and paid holidays

Job summary

Cambridge Investment Research, Inc. seeks a Director of Application & Production Operations to own operation of critical applications and production services.

You will lead production support, database services, and release governance with a focus on service health, resilience, and incident management. You will partner across Product, Architecture, Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, and Finance to drive performance and continuous improvement, while mentoring managers and teams in a complex

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in IT, engineering, CS, business, or equivalent.
• Experience in financial services or other regulated environments.
• Experience leading production support, application operations, and site reliability.
• Experience with databases, APIs, ETL, enterprise scheduling, batch processing, and middleware.
• Experience with observability, incident platforms, and release governance.
• Azure cloud experience and hybrid production dependencies are preferred.
• ITIL/SRE practices and related certifications are a plus.

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership for production support, database services, and release-support capabilities.
• Lead workforce planning, coaching, performance management, and succession planning.
• Oversee on-call coverage, releases, and cross-training efforts.
• Advise senior leaders on application risk, service health, and operational readiness.
• Establish governance for service ownership, demand, and lifecycle decisions.
• Drive executive communications with clear ownership and business impact.
• Build partnerships across Product, architecture, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and finance.
• Use data to identify trends and invest in high-value outcomes.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Executive communication

Influencing without authority

Operational focus

Financial management

Vendor negotiation

Change leadership

Risk-based decision making

Stakeholder management

Incident management

Education

Bachelor’s degree in information technology, engineering, computer science, or business

Tools

Dynatrace

Azure Monitor

Application Insights

Splunk

PagerDuty

ServiceNow

Job description

Job SummaryThe Director, Application & Production Operations leads the reliable, secure, supportable, and recoverable operation of Cambridge’s business-critical applications and production services. The role establishes operational ownership, standards, and governance across production support, database services, application operations, managed file transfer, batch processing, observability, release support, and assigned enterprise platforms. The position is accountable for service health, operational readiness, incident response, resilience, lifecycle risk, vendor performance, sustainable support models, and continuous improvement.Key Deliverables and ResponsibilitiesThis position provides direct and indirect leadership for production support, database services, and assigned application-operations and release-support capabilities, as well as contractors, consultants, and managed service providers supporting the function. Responsibilities include workforce planning, recruitment, coaching, performance management, succession planning, professional development, resource allocation, on-call and release coverage, cross-training, and organizational effectiveness.Leadership and Partnership Expectations· Advises senior technology and business leaders on application risk, investment priorities, production service health, lifecycle exposure, and operational readiness.· Creates transparent governance for service ownership, demand, prioritization, lifecycle decisions, releases, exceptions, and service performance.· Leads major incidents and executive communications with clear ownership, facts, decisions, business impact, and follow-through.· Builds strong partnerships across Product, application development, architecture, infrastructure, cybersecurity, service management, finance, procurement, vendors, and business teams.· Uses data to identify trends, remove recurring failure patterns, improve service experience, and direct investment toward the highest-value outcomes.· Promotes disciplined release practices, documentation, knowledge management, cross-training, and succession planning to reduce key-person dependency.Leadership Competencies· Strategic thinking· Executive communication· Influencing without authority· Operational and customer focus· Financial management and vendor negotiation· Change leadership and organizational development· Risk-based decision makingWhat We Are Looking For· Progressive leadership experience in application operations, production support, application support, site reliability, database operations, release management, or technology service operations, including leadership of managers and multidisciplinary technical teams responsible for business-critical production services.· Experience operating complex production environments spanning internally developed applications, commercial applications, SaaS platforms, databases, middleware, APIs, integrations, managed file transfer, enterprise scheduling, batch processing, web and application servers, and third-party dependencies.· Demonstrated experience establishing or governing production-support models, incident and problem management, operational readiness, service ownership, application observability, resilience, lifecycle management, or related production disciplines, with sufficient breadth to lead an integrated application and production operations function.· Ability to distinguish operational ownership from Development, Product, business, Infrastructure, Architecture, and Cybersecurity accountabilities and coordinate effectively across those boundaries.· Experience managing vendors, contracts, operating and capital budgets, forecasts, licensing, support services, and investment decisions.· Ability to build roadmaps, business cases, operating models, metrics, and executive communications that connect technical decisions to business outcomes.· Demonstrated ability to use operational data to improve service availability, restoration performance, release quality, processing reliability, vendor performance, risk reduction, or customer experience.· Strong judgment, communication, collaboration, stakeholder management, and leadership through incidents, competing priorities, change, and modernization.Preferred Qualification s· Education: Bachelor’s degree in information technology, engineering, computer science, business, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.· Industry: Experience in financial services or another regulated, risk-sensitive environment.· Application Operations: Experience leading production support, application operations, service ownership, operational readiness, and major-incident practices.· Data and Integration: Experience with database services and SQL platforms, ETL, enterprise scheduling, batch processing, managed file transfer, APIs, and middleware.· Observability and Incident Platforms: Experience with application-performance monitoring, logging and telemetry, incident-management and paging platforms, alert-quality management, and service-health reporting. Experience with tools such as Dynatrace, Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Splunk, PagerDuty, ServiceNow, or comparable enterprise platforms is preferred.· Release and Vendor Operations: Experience with release and change governance, SaaS and vendor-supported applications, vendor escalation, and production acceptance.· Cloud: Experience supporting Azure-hosted application and database services and hybrid production dependencies.· Methods and Certifications: Experience applying ITIL, site reliability engineering, service ownership, operational readiness, and business-continuity practices. Relevant cloud, service-management, reliability, business-continuity, or related certifications are preferred.Why Cambridge?Cambridge has competitive benefits and promotes a work/life balance to encourage individual success.Premium benefit package including medical, vision, dental, life and long-term disability insuranceVacation/sick time401K retirement plan with company matching programEleven paid holidaysYou can find more details about our comprehensive benefits package here .Cambridge Overview:Cambridge is a financial solutions firm that provides business support services to thousands of independent financial advisors. These advisors offer personalized investment services including wealth management, financial planning, and retirement services to individuals and families across the country. Cambridge provides significant compliance, technology, and transaction processing support to these financial advisors and their offices.