IT Applications Development Manager

Employment Requirements
This opportunity is not open to C2C relationships or visa sponsorship.

This opportunity is for local candidates only.

Job Description
Solu Technology Partners is seeking a senior level Applications Services Manager to provide strategic oversight and operational leadership for the enterprise application portfolio supporting municipal water and wastewater services. This role is responsible for guiding application lifecycle strategy, modernization planning, vendor engagement, and portfolio optimization, ensuring applications align with organizational priorities and deliver measurable business outcomes. The Applications Services Manager serves as a strategic portfolio leader with deep technical fluency, capable of aligning technology investments with business objectives, managing risk, and ensuring the long-term sustainability, security, and reliability of business-critical applications. While not a hands-on developer, the role requires sufficient technical depth to effectively oversee engineering teams, assess architectural and lifecycle decisions, and guide complex technical initiatives.


Responsibilities
Application Portfolio Management

• Manage and oversee an enterprise application portfolio supporting critical business and operational functions.
• Lead application portfolio rationalization efforts, including consolidation, modernization, replacement, or retirement of applications.

Application Lifecycle Planning & Strategy

• Develop and maintain strategic lifecycle plans and roadmaps addressing sustainment, upgrades, modernization, and end-of-life activities.
• Evaluate technical debt, obsolescence risk, operational impact, and cost to support informed investment decisions.
• Engage stakeholders to understand their business goals, priorities, and desired outcomes; capabilities and limitations; and develop actionable initiatives to address their needs and deliver measurable results.

Technical Oversight & Operations

• Provide oversight into development, configuration, integration, testing, deployment, and production support.
• Review technical designs, upgrade strategies, and implementation approaches to ensure stability, scalability, and maintainability.
• Guide technical staff and vendors during complex incidents, upgrades, and high-risk changes.
• Ensure consistent practices across development, change management, and production releases.

Work Tracking, Metrics & Executive Reporting

• Establish formal mechanisms to track staff and vendor work, project plans, and operational tasks
• Monitor progress to ensure alignment with departmental priorities, timelines, and service commitments.
• Develop and deliver weekly executive-level reports summarizing application health, risks, milestones, and resource utilization.
• Utilize dashboards and reporting tools (e.g., Power BI) to provide visibility into work progress and portfolio status.

Identify risks, issues, and resource constraints and implement corrective actions as needed.

Vendor, Contract & Financial Management

• Oversee vendor relationships supporting enterprise applications.
• Develop and manage operational budgets and Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) related to application modernization or expansion.

Governance, Continuity & Compliance

• Serve as liaison for disaster recovery, business continuity, and audit activities related to the application portfolio
• Ensure applications meet continuity of operations

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, or a closely related field.
• Six years of experience developing, evaluating, using, and maintaining technical systems, hardware, and software, including oversight or coordination of enterprise applications, vendor-supported systems, and operational environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Six years of advanced experience managing or overseeing enterprise application environments within a large, complex organization.
• At least 10 years of advanced experience overseeing application upgrades, development, integration, testing, deployment, and sustainment activities.
• Four years of advanced experience in application portfolio rationalization, modernization