IT Applications Lead

About Us

SOHAR Port and Freezone is a deep-sea Port and Freezone in the Sultanate of Oman, managed by SOHAR Industrial Port Company (SIPC), a 50:50 joint venture between the Port of Rotterdam and the Sultanate of Oman.

Job Description

Technical Leadership

• Provide technical input to the Digitalization Manager on the applications roadmap, priorities and the IT annual plan.
• Coach and guide applications team members and ensure design and quality reviews are carried out for applications delivered by the team and vendors.
• Lead the technical planning of IT applications projects and supervise their implementation.
• Ensure applications support is delivered within the agreed service levels (SLAs) to achieve user and customer satisfaction.
• Assign and direct the day-to-day application tasks of the team and vendors.
• Identify opportunities and propose solutions for business services automation, integration, cost savings, quality and security improvement.
• Act as the technical design authority: define and enforce application architecture, integration, coding and secure-development standards.

Application Development and Project Delivery

• Understand business processes and requirements by working closely with business units, and translate them into functional and technical specifications.
• Supervise applications development and integrations for the digitalization and automation of business workflows, as well as the development of Business Intelligence dashboards and reports.
• Lead the technical delivery of assigned IT applications projects within the agreed scope, schedule and quality, to achieve business objectives.
• Act as technical lead for applications-related projects initiated by the business units.
• Prepare technical solution designs and options (including build vs. buy) for assigned projects, for the Digitalization Manager’s review and decision.
• Provide progress, risk and issue updates on assigned projects to the Digitalization Manager.
• Work closely with vendors’ development teams and review their development activities against technical specifications and standards.
• Define the testing approach and quality gates; ensure functional, technical and performance testing is completed, and solutions are verified before UAT and release to production.
• Ensure technical and functional documentation for IT applications is maintained to agreed standards.
• Direct the development and enhancement of in-house applications to match business processes and requirements.

Applications Operations & Support

• Act as the escalation point for complex application issues and drive root-cause resolution.
• Lead the resolution of application incidents and problems with the Service Desk and vendors, within the agreed SLAs.
• Provide technical evaluation of vendors’ support performance as input to applications support and license contract renewals.
• Ensure application maintenance is carried out, including timely installation of software patches and upgrades, performance monitoring and analysis of usage patterns to identify modifications/enhancements.
• Ensure application access controls are implemented in line with security best practices and the company security policy, and support periodic access reviews.
• Ensure IT applications comply with internal and national policies and procedures, including periodic backup and restoration testing.

Change Management and User Readiness

• Lead the change management process for application-related changes, planning the smooth migration of modifications/enhancements to the production environment.
• Ensure knowledge transfer from vendors and user readiness (including end-user training) for new or changed applications.
• Direct vendors on the technical aspects of business applications, assess proposed functionality against business requirements and recommend suitable solutions.
• Track software updates/upgrades available in the market and evaluate them against business requirements.
• Identify and recommend opportunities for continuous improvement and sustainability of systems, processes and practices, considering global best standards, productivity improvement and cost reduction.
• Comply with and promote all relevant quality, health, safety and environmental management policies, procedures and controls within the applications activities, to ensure employee safety, legislative compliance, delivery of high-quality products/services and a responsible environmental attitude.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Software Engineering, Information Systems or a related field.
• Professional certification in software development, cloud platforms, Agile/Scru