Application Services Manager

POSITION: APPLICATION SERVICE MANAGER LOCATION: CAMPINAS, SAO PAULO, BRAZIL. WORKING MODEL: HYBRID (YOU WILL HAVE TO BE THERE AT CLIENT LOCATION FOR 2 DAYS IN A WEEK) Purpose of the Role: The Application Service Manager ensures end-to-end stability, performance, and governance of applications within the Global Applications Management ecosystem. This role combines technical oversight, vendor management, and financial control, ensuring applications deliver continuous value, meet SLAs, and operate efficiently across multiple business zones. The Service Manager acts as the main point of accountability for operational excellence, cost optimization, and service continuity of assigned applications. Additionally, the ASM must engage with Function Tower teams from the early stages of any initiative to ensure that applications are fully compliant with company standards, security guidelines, and operational frameworks before go-live. Key Responsibilities: 1. Application Portfolio Ownership • Manage the full lifecycle of enterprise applications — deployment, monitoring, incident response, maintenance, and decommissioning. • Define and track KPIs and SLAs to ensure business continuity and customer satisfaction. • Guarantee alignment with global IT policies, security standards, and audit requirements. • Ensure all applications adhere to corporate cybersecurity policies, data protection standards, and regulatory compliance requirements. Partner with Security and Compliance teams to proactively mitigate risks and maintain audit readiness. 2. Service Delivery & Governance • Oversee daily operations of ASM providers and internal teams, ensuring timely resolution of incidents and service requests. • Maintain dashboards and documentation to support transparency and performance tracking. • Partner with Function Towers from the design and early build phases to embed operational readiness and compliance in every deployment. • Good understanding of DevOps practices and automation to increase deployment reliability, monitoring, and continuous improvement across environments. • Ensure continuous monitoring and observability of applications and infrastructure, leveraging dashboards, alerts, and trend analysis to proactively identify issues and performance bottlenecks. 3. Vendor & Contract Management • Act as primary interface with external vendors and service providers. • Monitor contractual KPIs and escalate deviations as needed. • Lead contract renewals, closing letters and negotiate improvements in service levels or pricing structures. 4. Financial & OPEX Management • Own the OPEX plan for assigned applications — budget, cost tracking, performance and forecast. • Identify optimization opportunities (e.g., license rationalization, cloud consumption, and automation). • Partner with Finance and Procurement to ensure cost efficiency and alignment with global financial targets. 5. Change & Release Management • Oversee controlled deployment of application releases, patches, and upgrades. • Ensure adherence to change management processes and communication with stakeholders. • Validate post-release performance and stability. 6. Stakeholder Engagement & Communication • Collaborate with Product Owners, Business Leads, and Regional IT teams to align priorities and address operational pain points. • Act as the voice of IT Operations in global projects, ensuring maintainability and scalability considerations are embedded early. • Facilitate cross-zone collaboration to promote process consistency and best practices. Qualifications, Experience & Skills: Education • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related fields. • Certifications such as ITIL, PMP, or equivalent are a plus. Experience • IT Operations or Application Management within large, complex environments. • Proven experience managing enterprise applications and vendors contracts. • Solid track record in cost management, governance, and service improvement initiatives. Skills & Competencies • Strong knowledge of ITIL framework and service management principles. • Proficiency in performance monitoring and troubleshooting tools. • Analytical mindset with ability to interpret operational data and identify improvement levers. • Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills. • Ability to work across cultures and time zones. • Advanced English proficiency. Technical Knowledge • Familiarity with enterprise technologies (e.g., Microsoft ecosystem, Azure, SAP, Power Platform, Dataverse). • Understanding databases, integrations, and cloud architecture. • Experience with ticketing systems (e.g., ServiceNow) and monitoring tools (Datadog, Grafana, etc)