Associate Manager, IT Applications Management

Associate Manager, IT Applications Management

The Associate Manager, IT Applications Management is responsible for leading a team that supports, maintains, and enhances enterprise and business-critical applications. This role blends people leadership, application lifecycle management, and operational excellence to ensure stable, secure, and high-performing application services.

The Associate Manager will partner closely with business stakeholders, vendors, and cross-functional IT teams to drive incident resolution, problem management, application improvements, and continuous service optimization. This role plays a key part in enabling Thermo Fisher Scientific’s global business operations through reliable and compliant application support.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of application support analysts and engineers
• Conduct performance reviews, goal setting, and career development planning
• Manage workload distribution, on-call/shift coverage, and team capacity
• Own day-to-day support for enterprise and business applications.
• Ensure adherence to ITIL processes including Incident, Problem, Change, and Service Request Management
• Drive root cause analysis and permanent fix implementation for recurring application issues
• Monitor application health, performance, and availability against SLAs
• Coordinate application deployments, upgrades, patches, and maintenance activities
• Act as an escalation point for business-critical application issues
• Build strong relationships with business partners and ensure clear communication of status and risks
• Manage third-party vendors and application support partners to meet contractual SLAs
• Identify opportunities for automation, process improvement, and service optimization
• Support audit readiness and compliance activities, including GMP and Computer Systems Validation (CSV) where applicable
• Ensure data privacy, access controls, and security standards are followed across supported applications

Education & Experience

• Advanced Degree with 3+ years of relevant experience or bachelor’s degree with 5+ years of experience supporting enterprise applications in large, global environments
• Preferred fields: Computer Science, Information Technology, or related discipline
• 1–3 years of supervisory or people management experience

Technical & Functional Skills

• Strong experience supporting enterprise applications.
• Working knowledge of ITIL service management practices (ITIL certification preferred)
• Experience with application lifecycle management, change control, and release management
• Familiarity with SQL, batch jobs, integrations, and application monitoring tools
• Understanding of data privacy, access management, and application security principles
• Proven ability to manage priorities across multiple applications and stakeholders
• Strong problem-solving skills with structured root cause analysis
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including explaining technical concepts to non-technical audiences
• Strong customer service mindset and relationship-building skills
• Experience working in cross-functional and global teams

Preferred / Nice To Have

• Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt
• Experience in regulated environments (pharmaceutical, life sciences, or manufacturing)
• Knowledge of GMP and Computer Systems Validation (CSV)
• Experience supporting applications impacting 50–100+ users

Key skills/competency

• People leadership
• Application lifecycle management
• Operational excellence
• ITIL processes
• Incident management
• Problem management
• Change management
• Vendor management
• Compliance (GMP, CSV)
• Data privacy & Security