Senior Application Support Specialist – Banking Applications (UAE)

Role Overview

We are seeking a seasoned Senior Application Support Specialist to join a prominent banking institution in the UAE. This position involves managing critical banking applications to ensure constant availability, swift incident resolution, and smooth integration with UAE Central Bank payment systems.

Primary Responsibilities

• Deliver Level 2 and Level 3 support for essential banking applications.
• Track system performance, troubleshoot issues, and guarantee resolving incidents within the agreed service levels.
• Assist in daily payment processing and banking operations.
• Conduct root cause investigations and apply permanent solutions.
• Collaborate effectively with business stakeholders, vendors, infrastructure teams, and developers.
• Manage application deployments including releases, patches, and upgrades.
• Document operations and generate support reports comprehensively.
• Engage in on-call rotations to support critical banking systems.
• Maintain compliance with banking security policies, audits, and operational standards.

Mandatory Technical Expertise

• Proficient in support of UAE-specific banking platforms such as ICCS, WPS, DDS, IPI, NPSS, and integrations with AECB.
• Expertise in UAE Central Bank payment applications and banking middleware solutions.
• Strong skills in SQL database troubleshooting and experience with Linux and/or Windows operating systems.

Experience and Qualifications

• Over eight years of experience in application support, with a minimum of five years in banking environment production support.
• Background working within UAE financial organizations is essential.
• Well-versed in incident and problem management and ITIL best practices.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, IT, or a related field; ITIL Foundation certification preferred.
• Additional certifications related to banking or IT infrastructure are beneficial.

Preferred Experience

• Familiarity with Central Bank systems of UAE, payment gateway operations, payment switches, and SWIFT messaging.
• Experience with API integrations and database technologies like Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
• Usage of monitoring and analytics tools such as AppDynamics, Dynatrace, Splunk, or ELK stack.

Personal Attributes

• Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities.
• Capability to perform effectively in a demanding 24/7 banking environment.
• Strong communication skills for stakeholder engagement.
• Proactive team player attitude for handling production support responsibilities.