Lead Certification

Job Description Role REPORTS TO Application Support Head Chief Technology Officer BRIEF BACKGROUND Hitachi Payment Services is a leading payment solutions provider in the country enabling its customers to grow by offering technology-led cash & digital payment solutions while building a robust payment infrastructure in the country driving financial empowerment and enabling social change. We cater to customers such as banks payment aggregators and fintech players who are ready to capture the emerging opportunities in this payments segment. PURPOSE OF JOB The Head of Application Support will be responsible for leading and overseeing the enterprise application support functions for critical payment systems ensuring high availability resilience and compliance across a range of payment platforms. This includes cards UPI NETC PoS PG gateways and settlement platforms. The role will drive operational excellence manage L1 L2 and L3 support teams and align support strategies with business regulatory and customer needs. As a strategic leader this role will bridge the gap between operations technology vendors and executive stakeholders to ensure seamless and secure payment processes. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Strategic Leadership: Define and execute the application support strategy for all payment systems ensuring high availability compliance and operational resilience across platforms (cards UPI NETC PoS PG gateways settlement systems). Establish and enforce governance frameworks for incident management problem management and change management adhering to industry best practices such as ITIL PCI DSS and ISO 27001 standards. Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance system stability reduce downtime and optimize the overall transaction throughput for payment systems. Align support strategies with the business goals and regulatory requirements focusing on improving customer experience reducing costs and enhancing security. Service Delivery & Operations: Ensure 24x7 availability of payment applications by implementing robust monitoring tools and proactive issue detection mechanisms. Oversee incident triage escalation and resolution across L1L3 support teams ensuring that service-level agreements (SLAs) are met and support functions run smoothly. Lead root cause analysis (RCA) efforts for recurring issues ensuring long-term resolutions are implemented to prevent future disruptions. Coordinate disaster recovery (DR) plans and business continuity planning for critical payment systems ensuring minimal disruption to services during any unplanned outages. Compliance & Risk Management: Ensure adherence to key regulatory standards such as RBI guidelines PCI DSS ISO 27001 and DPDP (Data Protection and Privacy). Maintain audit-ready documentation for all incidents changes and vendor actions ensuring the support environment remains compliant. Partner with Information Security teams to enforce patching schedules vulnerability remediation and secure coding practices across payment systems. Track and report on operational KPIs including Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) transaction success rates and fraud detection metrics. Stakeholder & Vendor Management: Serve as the primary liaison between business units technology teams and external vendors ensuring clear communication and seamless collaboration. Negotiate and manage vendor SLAs ensuring that third-party vendors meet uptime requirements and maintain high support quality. Provide executive reporting to senior leadership on the health of the payment platforms system risks ongoing improvement initiatives and areas requiring attention. Team Development: Build and mentor a high-performing support organization across L1 L2 and L3 teams fostering an environment of accountability collaboration and continuous learning. Drive knowledge management initiatives ensuring that internal documentation (playbooks SOPs runbooks) is consistently updated and accessible. Foster a culture of collaboration and excellence ensuring team members are empowered to take ownership of support activities and continuous improvement processes. Core Competencies: Strategic Vision: Ability to align the application support strategy with broader business and regulatory priorities. Leadership: Skilled in building and motivating high-performing cross-functional teams fostering collaboration and accountability. Risk Awareness: Strong focus on maintaining compliance audit readiness and ensuring operational resilience in a high-pressure environment. Collaboration: Effective at working with diverse business technology and vendor teams to deliver solutions. Execution Excellence: Ability to remain calm under pressure and make decisive decisions during critical incidents ensuring service recovery and stability. QUALIFICATION/KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS/EXPERIENCE Required Skills & Experience: 1218 years of IT experience with at least 5 years in leadership roles specifically within the payment systems domain. Strong understanding of payment processing flows including authorization clearing settlement and -depth knowledge of compliance frameworks such as ITIL PCI DSS ISO 27001 and RBI guidelines with hands-on experience implementing and ensuring compliance across payment platforms. Expertise in monitoring tools (e.g. AppDynamics Dynatrace VUnet) and ticketing systems (JIRA ServiceNow) for proactive incident management and issue resolution. Proficiency in SQL scripting (Shell/Python) and log analysis for in-depth troubleshooting and resolution of technical issues. Proven track record in vendor management and contract governance ensuring vendors deliver on SLAs and maintain the required support quality. Strong communication skills with the ability to effectively manage stakeholders at all levels from technical teams to senior executives. Preferred Qualifications: Bachelors/Masters Degree in Computer Science Information Technology or a related field. Industry certifications (e.g. ITIL CISSP CISM) are a plus. Experience in handling large-scale payment systems and platforms with deep expertise in managing high-volume transaction environments. KEY COMPETENCIES

Required Experience:

Senior Manager