IT Application Support Lead

Application Support Lead

Build a brilliant future with Hiscox

HISCOX is an international insurer specialized in the market of luxury goods & property, and high-end professional insurance. As experts in risk, we give people and businesses the confidence to realize their ambitions. With offices in 9 European countries, we have a very international staff and encourage a culture that fosters inclusion and collaboration, offering exciting opportunities for personal and professional growth.

In our Lisbon office we have the privilege of employing approximately 500 exceptional professionals representing 29 diverse nationalities. Despite our central location within the city, we recognize the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance. As part of our commitment to our employees' well-being, we provide a 35-hour workweek along with the option for a hybrid working schedule.

In Hiscox Europe, you will work across several geographies, which includes Germany, France, Benelux, Iberia and Ireland. We are organized in an Agile manner through Value Streams with the aim of autonomous teams towards specific key demands, be it country specific or cross country.

As part of the Europe Technology Team, based in Lisbon, and reporting to Service Product Owner, you will be the Team Lead responsible for the day to day of Application Support Analysts.

The Role

As Application Support Lead, you will be responsible for the day to day of the Application Support Analysts ensuring quality in the whole incident management process for all European applications within the Hiscox IT application portfolio. The portfolio includes a broad range of applications from digital customer facing portals, APIs and File Integrations, Core System processes, Data Analytics applications.

Key Responsibilities

Operations & Service Delivery

• Responsible for monitoring and maintaining the health of European applications to ensure availability, performance, and capacity service levels are met and maintained.
• Maintains a close working relationship with users, third parties, vendors and stakeholders by assisting with enquiries related to application operations, issues, and workflows.
• Act as the enabler of the Service Product Owner KPIs throughout the day to day operations.
• Put forward recommendations for proactive support or service improvements.

Incident Management

• Act as the Incident Manager by managing the resolution of major operational Incidents to restore service as soon as possible and minimize business disruption. Coordinates the restoration of service activities for any major critical application incidents. Acts / ensures clear identification of who is the single point of contact during critical incidents, provides / ensures effective and timely communication to all impacted stakeholders.
• Coordinates comprehensive post-incident reports that communicate the full extent and impact of service disruptions as well as remedial actions.
• Defines, develops and provides an application problem analysis and resolution service for complex application problems in collaboration with business users and internal or external support teams supporting the application.

Knowledge Management

• Ensures all application support related documents and artefacts are kept up to date and maintained in various knowledge repositories
• Supports the transition of IT projects from delivery to operational readiness via support model definition and knowledge transition activities.

Others

• Provide guidance and support as needed to Application Support Analysts
• Develop and enforce procedures and documentation for application support.

Person Specification

• Solid understanding of ITIL principles, having certification will be highly recognized.
• Prior experience in software engineering or equivalent on IT Service / Operations delivery.
• Comfortable with ITSM tools (Incident management, Problem Management, Request Fulfilment, Change Management, CMDB, Configuration Management System, etc.)
• Previous experience in an IT role with responsibilities in planning and team management, managing and leading IT teams, including previous experience working within an agile environment.
• Previous experience managing mixed teams with internal and external staff, including strong 3rd party management skills.
• Familiarity with Monitoring & Alerting suites (e.g. in Grafana, New Relic, Dynatrace).
• Knowledge of Azure cloud platform and previous experience with Azure cloud operations as well as certifications is a plus.
• Basic insurance knowledge
• Good written and verbal English communication skills, additional language (German, French, Spanish, or Dutch) is a plus.

Why Hiscox?

• Healthy work-life balance with our 35h/week and hybrid working system.
• Holidays: 25 days + 2 Hiscox Days (Extra two Annual Leave).
• Health insurance, gym allowance, pension plan etc.
• After 5 years work 1-month sabbatical leave.
• Team spirit with many opportunities to engage and an open culture.

Work with amazing people and be part of a unique culture