Production Support Engineer, Service Recovery (Banking, 1-year renewable contract)

Dear Candidate,

If you, or someone you know, would like to apply, please send your CV directly to [HIDDEN TEXT] (this is the most effective method, as I may miss some applications due to the high volume received).

Kindly be aware that visa sponsorship is currently unavailable.

Primary Responsibilities

• Deliver comprehensive 24x7 production support for customer-facing banking applications, transaction processing services, and the associated technology infrastructure.
• Identify and resolve issues that impact customers, including payment failures, transaction delays/reversals, reconciliation discrepancies, login/authentication problems, duplicate or declined transactions, and card-related issues.
• Assist with production incidents across core banking, retail and wholesale banking, cash management, customer information systems, credit/debit cards, and payment services.
• Conduct end-to-end transaction tracing across applications, databases, APIs, middleware, operating systems, networks, storage, and downstream services.
• Analyze application/system logs, SQL data, batch records, monitoring alerts, error messages, and file-transfer outcomes to uncover root causes.
• Troubleshoot issues in applications, databases, schedulers, operating systems, networks, storage, middleware, external interfaces, and third-party services.
• Support Start-of-Day/End-of-Day processing, production releases, application deployments, service restoration, and Disaster Recovery procedures.
• Carry out or coordinate infrastructure tasks such as network troubleshooting, OS/storage patching, vulnerability remediation, server deployment, migration, upgrades, and performance/capacity assessments.
• Assist with both physical and virtual server environments, infrastructure provisioning, environment setups, lifecycle management, high availability, backup, and recovery processes.
• Safely execute application, middleware, database, and batch service restarts during maintenance, including pre-checks, post-change validations, and health assessments.
• Monitor systems, transactions, batch jobs, interfaces, and file transfers using tools such as Splunk, Geneos, Control-M, and SQL monitoring platforms.
• Create and maintain dashboards, alerts, and operational monitoring tools to enhance service reliability and visibility.
• Automate operational and infrastructure processes using Ansible, UNIX/Linux shell scripting, PowerShell, Python, and SQL.
• Implement Incident, Problem, and Change Management practices and participate in major incident recovery to restore services within defined SLA/KPI targets.
• Conduct root-cause analyses and post-incident evaluations, instigating corrective and preventive measures for recurring issues.
• Draft change records, risk/impact assessments, implementation and validation plans, rollback procedures, and production-readiness documentation.
• Collaborate with business users, banking operations, application and database teams, infrastructure, network, cybersecurity, command center, and vendor teams.
• Maintain SOPs, runbooks, recovery processes, implementation plans, incident reports, and knowledge articles.
• Ensure compliance of all production activities with technology risk, information security, regulatory, audit, access control, and change governance requirements.

Essential Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
• 5+ years of direct experience in banking application support, infrastructure operations, production support, or a blend of these fields.
• Required experience in banking or financial services, supporting mission-critical systems in an SLA-focused environment.
• Demonstrated ability to manage customer-impacting and high-severity production incidents in a 24x7 setting.
• Strong practical experience in investigating payments, transactions, authentication, core banking, cash management, card processing, batch operations, interfaces, and file transfer challenges.
• Proficient in end-to-end transaction tracing, log analysis, SQL investigations, data validations, and root-cause analysis.
• Hands-on experience with various enterprise platforms, including UNIX/Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, IBM AIX, Windows Server, AS/400, and/or mainframe systems.
• Familiarity with tools such as Splunk, Geneos, Control-M, SQL monitoring, and enterprise application/infrastructure monitoring solutions.
• Solid understanding of networking, OS/storage patching, server deployment, VMware or equivalent virtualization, high availability, backups, and Disaster Recovery processes.
• Practical experience with automation/scripting using Ansible, UNIX/Linux shell scripting, PowerShell, Python, or SQL.
• Strong knowledge of Incident, Problem, and Change Management, including major incident recovery, implementation planning, risk evaluation, validation, rollback, and post-incident assessments.
• Excellent analytical, troubleshooting, documentation, and problem-solving abilities.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, along with strong stakeholder management abilities.
• Capability to work independently and under tight deadlines, with a keen focus on customer impact, transaction integrity, operational risk, and service availability.
• Willingness to engage in rotating shifts, 24x7 on-call responsibilities, weekend/public-holiday support, and after-hours production releases or maintenance.
• Relevant certifications such as ITIL, RHCSA/RHCE, IBM AIX, Microsoft, VMware, Ansible, cloud, database, or infrastructure certifications are beneficial.
• Experience in retail/wholesale banking, payments, reconciliation, clearing/settlement, APIs, middleware, managed file transfer, or Oracle/Microsoft SQL Server is a plus.
• Exposure to Azure/AWS, cybersecurity, vulnerability management, regulatory compliance, and audit controls is advantageous.