Application Support Manager

Role SummaryWe are seeking an experienced Application Support Manager (Appian) to lead the support, maintenance, and operational governance of business-critical Appian applications. The ideal candidate will possess strong expertise in Appian platform support, IT service management, stakeholder engagement, and team leadership.The role will be responsible for managing L2/L3 support teams, ensuring SLA compliance, driving incident and problem management processes, overseeing Appian platform health, and collaborating with development, infrastructure, and business teams to maintain application stability, availability, and performance.The successful candidate will act as the primary point of contact for German-speaking customers and business stakeholders while driving continuous service improvement and operational excellence. Key ResponsibilitiesService Delivery & Operational ManagementOwn end-to-end support and maintenance of Appian-based applications.Ensure compliance with contractual SLAs, OLAs, KPIs, and service commitments.Lead service delivery governance and operational reviews.Develop and implement service improvement plans.Ensure high application availability, reliability, and performance.Appian Application SupportManage L2/L3 support activities for Appian applications across development, test, and production environments.Oversee troubleshooting of Appian process models, records, reports, integrations, sites, document management, and data sync issues.Monitor Appian Health Check reports and platform performance.Coordinate Appian deployments, hotfixes, patches, and release activities.Collaborate with Appian development teams to resolve recurring issues and technical debt.Ensure compliance with Appian best practices and governance standards.Incident & Problem ManagementLead resolution of critical production incidents and major service outages.Act as the highest operational escalation point.Facilitate Major Incident Management (MIM) calls with technical and business stakeholders.Drive Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and corrective action plans.Implement proactive monitoring and preventive measures to reduce incident recurrence.Team Leadership & Resource ManagementLead and mentor a team of Appian Support Engineers and Technical Leads.Manage performance reviews, career development, and training plans.Conduct workforce planning, shift scheduling, and on-call management.Identify capability gaps and drive Appian certifications and skill enhancement initiatives.Support hiring and onboarding of support resources.Stakeholder & Customer ManagementServe as the primary contact for German-speaking customers and business stakeholders.Communicate incident updates, service performance, and improvement initiatives.Conduct monthly and quarterly service review meetings.Build trusted relationships with customer leadership teams.Manage escalations and ensure timely stakeholder communication.Change & Release ManagementGovern application changes, releases, and deployment activities.Ensure appropriate risk assessment, rollback planning, and approvals.Maintain application support documentation, runbooks, and operational procedures.Participate in CAB (Change Advisory Board) discussions.Continuous Improvement & AutomationIdentify opportunities for operational automation and process optimization.Drive reduction of manual support activities through Appian and scripting solutions.Improve service efficiency through monitoring, analytics, and AI-assisted operations.Establish knowledge management and self-service capabilities.Reporting & GovernancePrepare and present operational and executive dashboards.Track and improve:SLA ComplianceMTTR (Mean Time to Resolution)MTTD (Mean Time to Detect)Application AvailabilityIncident BacklogChange Success RateCustomer Satisfaction (CSAT)Present performance metrics and improvement roadmaps to leadership. Required QualificationsExperience10+ years of experience in Application Support, Production Support, or Managed Services.Minimum 5 years of experience leading support teams.Experience supporting enterprise-scale Appian applications.Proven experience managing customer-facing support operations.Experience working in SLA-driven environments.Appian ExpertiseStrong knowledge of Appian architecture and platform administration.Experience supporting:Process ModelsRecordsInterfacesIntegrationsWeb APIsDocument ManagementData FabricAppian SitesExperience with Appian Health Check analysis and performance optimization.Hands-on experience in Appian deployments and release management.Technical SkillsUnderstanding of cloud platforms such as AWS and Azure.Strong SQL and database troubleshooting skills.Experience with APIs, integration platforms, middleware, and authentication technologies.Familiarity with monitoring and observability tools.Experience with ServiceNow, Jira, Confluence, and DevOps tools.Service Management SkillsStrong knowledge of ITIL processes:Incident ManagementProblem ManagementChange ManagementRelease ManagementService Level ManagementExperience managing critical incident bridges and executive communications.Language SkillsGerman Language: C1/C2 (Mandatory)English Language: Professional Working Proficiency