Production Support Manager

iOCO Pty Ltd; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 300 000 - 400 000; Full time

Job summary

A technology services company in Johannesburg is seeking an experienced Production Support Manager to lead a team of analysts and engineers. The role includes overseeing incident management processes and ensuring adherence to best practices. The ideal candidate will have at least 5 years of experience in technical support with strong leadership abilities. Candidates with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and ITIL certification are preferred.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5+ years experience in technical support or production operations role.
• 2-3 years leading and managing a Production Support or Technical Support team.
• Experience with critical incidents and providing executive-level status updates.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a team of Production Support Analysts and Engineers.
• Oversee incident management and act as Major Incident Manager during failures.
• Establish and monitor key service metrics and KPIs.

Skills

Leadership & Management

Incident Management

Problem Management

System Monitoring

Stakeholder Communication

Agile methodologies

Collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

ITIL Foundation Certification

Job description

What you'll do:

• Leadership & Management

  • Lead, mentor, and manage a team of Production Support Analysts and Engineers, fostering a high-performance, customer-focused, and collaborative culture.
  • Manage team resources, schedules, and on-call rotations (including 24/7/365 coverage) to ensure adequate support and coverage for all critical systems.
  • Set performance goals, conduct reviews, and manage professional development for team members.
  • Manage relationships with external vendors, outsourced support partners, and internal cross-functional teams (Development, QA, Infrastructure, etc.).

• Incident, Problem, and Change Management

  • Oversee the Incident Management process, ensuring timely identification, triage, escalation, communication, and resolution of production issues and outages.
  • Act as the Major Incident Manager during critical system failures, coordinating all necessary teams and communications until resolution.
  • Drive the Problem Management process, including leading and performing Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for all significant incidents, documenting findings, and ensuring preventative measures are implemented by the appropriate teams.
  • Ensure adherence to Change Management policies for all production system changes, updates, and releases, minimizing risk to the live environment.
  • Develop, refine, and enforce production support processes and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in alignment with ITIL best practices.

• System Monitoring & Service Improvement

  • Establish, monitor, and report on key service metrics (KPIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) such as Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR), system availability, and incident volume.
  • Oversee and manage system monitoring, alerting, and logging tools to proactively identify and address potential system health and performance issues.
  • Collaborate with Development/Engineering teams to improve the supportability, resiliency, and performance of applications.
  • Drive continuous service improvement by identifying and implementing automation opportunities for routine support tasks, monitoring, and problem resolution.

• Stakeholder Communication & Documentation

  • Provide timely, clear, and professional communication of system status, outages, and resolutions to business stakeholders, executive leadership, and customers.
  • Oversee the creation, maintenance, and distribution of comprehensive operational documentation, knowledge base articles, and runbooks.

Your Expertise:

• Minimum of 5+ years of experience in a technical support, application support, or production operations role within a software-driven environment.
• Minimum of 2-3 years of proven experience leading, managing, and mentoring a Production Support or Technical Support team.
• Proven experience managing critical incidents, coordinating technical teams, and providing executive-level status updates.
• Demonstrated experience with the full Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and deployment processes.
• Proven experience is Agile and Scrum methodologies including KanBan

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• ITIL Foundation Certification is highly desirable.