First Level Technical Manager

First Level Technical Manager Application Development & Support
We are seeking a dynamic and experienced First Level Technical Manager to lead a high-performing team in designing, developing, deploying, and supporting modern, scalable enterprise applications. The ideal candidate will have 10+ years of experience spanning a broad range of technologiesincluding backend, front-end, messaging, cloud infrastructure, containers, databases, AI/ML, and UNIX/Linux environmentsand a proven track record of technical leadership and application support. This role requires hands-on technical expertise, proficiency in all phases of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), and a passion for innovation, stability, and team growth. Key Responsibilities:

• Lead, mentor, and inspire a multidisciplinary agile team through all phases of SDLC: requirements gathering, architecture, design, development, testing, deployment, and ongoing application support.
• Own the delivery and operational stability of multiple business-critical applications, ensuring high availability, rapid incident response, root cause analysis, and continuous service improvement.
• Collaborate closely with engineers, architects, data scientists, product managers, QA, support, and business stakeholders to define requirements and architect solutions leveraging backend, front-end, cloud, messaging, and AI/ML technologies.
• Champion best practices in coding, testing, DevOps, CI/CD, cloud-native application development, and production support.
• Drive the adoption of monitoring, logging, alerting, and observability tools to proactively manage application health, performance, and user experience.
• Guide the integration of messaging and event-driven solutions (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ, JMS) for distributed systems.
• Ensure comprehensive system and process documentation, effective knowledge sharing, and reproducibility of solutions and support procedures.
• Foster a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and professional growth within the team.
• Communicate status, risks, incidents, and opportunities clearly to stakeholders and senior management.
• Support the hiring, onboarding, and professional development of new team members. Coaching, mentoring and performance management of team-Set clear performance goals, develop skills within the team, and foster a collaborative and customer-focused culture

Technical Skills:

• 8+ years in enterprise application development, application modernization, technical leadership, and application support.
• Proficiency in all phases of the SDLC and a strong track record supporting production applications.
• Expertise in backend technologies (Java/J2EE, Spring Boot, Node.js, .NET, or similar enterprise frameworks).
• Familiarity with front-end technologies (Angular, React, Node.js, or similar frameworks).
• Deep hands-on experience with any of the cloud platforms preferably Azure and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Proven experience with messaging and event-driven frameworks (Kafka, RabbitMQ, JMS, ActiveMQ).
• Strong skills in RDBMS (Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB, DocumentDB, Redis).
• Proficiency with build tools (Maven, Gradle, NPM), distributed version control (Git, GitHub, Bitbucket), and CI/CD automation (Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps).
• Experience with application monitoring, logging, and observability tools (ELK/EFK stack, Dynatrace, Prometheus, Grafana).
• Familiarity with UNIX/Linux environments is required.

Good-to-Have:

• Experience with popular application servers (Tomcat, WebLogic, JBoss, Glassfish).
• Knowledge of serverless architectures and Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Experience designing and supporting highly transactional, distributed SaaS applications.

Leadership & Process Skills:

• Experience managing agile teams, conducting performance reviews, and supporting team development.
• Strong communication, documentation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Commitment to continuous improvement, innovation, and ongoing learning.
• Ability to drive a culture of operational excellence and customer focus.

Familiarity with process management tools (JIRA, Confluence) and BPMN frameworks (e.g., Camunda).

• Certifications in Java, Cloud, or AI/ML.

Qualifications:

• Bachelors or masters degree in computer science or a related field.
• Prior experience in a technical management or team lead role is highly preferred.