SENIOR PROJECT LEAD

Job Description

Job Description: Application Support Manager (Appian) ? German Speaking

Position Details

Job Title: Application Support Manager (Appian)
Location: Germany / Europe (Hybrid / Remote)
Experience: 10+ Years in Application Support, Production Support, or Service Delivery
Language: German (C1/C2) and English (Professional Proficiency)
Employment Type: Full-Time

Role Summary

We 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 Responsibilities

Service Delivery & Operational Management

• Own 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 Support

• Manage 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 Management

• Lead 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 Management

• Lead 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 Management

• Serve 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 Management

• Govern 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 & Automation

• Identify 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 & Governance

• Prepare and present operational and executive dashboards.
• Track and improve:
  • SLA Compliance
  • MTTR (Mean Time to Resolution)
  • MTTD (Mean Time to Detect)
  • Application Availability
  • Incident Backlog
  • Change Success Rate
  • Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
• Present performance metrics and improvement roadmaps to leadership.

Required Qualifications

Experience

• 10+ 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 Expertise

• Strong knowledge of Appian architecture and platform administration.
• Experience supporting:
  • Process Models
  • Records
  • Interfaces
  • Integrations
  • Web APIs
  • Document Management
  • Data Fabric
  • Appian Sites
• Experience with Appian Health Check analysis and performance optimization.
• Hands-on experience in Appian deployments and release management.

Technical Skills

• Understanding 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 Skills

• Strong knowledge of ITIL processes:
  • Incident Management
  • Problem Management
  • Change Management
  • Release Management
  • Service Level Management
• Experience managing critical incident bridges and executive communications.

Language Skills

• German Language: C1/C2 (Mandatory)
• English Language: Professional Working Proficiency

Preferred Qualifications

• Appian Certified Senior Developer (Preferred)
• Appian Lead Developer Certification (Preferred)
• Appian Certified Associate Developer
• ITIL Foundation or ITIL Managing Professional
• PMP, Prince2, or Scrum Master Certification
• AWS or Azure Certification
• Experience supporting Appian Cloud environments