Application Operations Director

About the Role

The Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority is seeking an Application Operations Director to join their team in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This full-time role is critical for ensuring the effective management, operation, and maintenance of the Authority's IT applications, guaranteeing their constant availability and high performance for end-users within established quality standards and timeframes.

Key Responsibilities

• Contribute to the development of the IT Operations business plan, ensuring alignment with the ZATCA strategy.
• Develop the operational plan for Application Operations in line with the IT Operations business plan and the IT & Digitization strategic plan.
• Implement plans and provide input to achieve Application Operations goals that support ZATCA’s overall strategic plans.
• Discuss Application Operations budgeting requirements with top management and provide input to the budgeting process.
• Ensure effective utilization of the Application Operations budget and report accurately on progress and challenges.
• Investigate and propose initiatives that result in positive financial impact for Application Operations and mitigate financial and operational risks.

Application Operations Management

• Define the IT application operations model in line with IT strategy to meet business requirements and objectives.
• Manage the operation of ZATCA IT applications, ensuring best-in-class operational performance.
• Ensure incidents related to applications are properly handled and prioritized based on criticality, recommending corrective actions in coordination with relevant stakeholders within agreed SLAs.
• Manage production outages and escalations, ensuring correct stakeholders are involved to drive resolution.
• Ensure proactive preventive maintenance activities are implemented on IT applications to enhance service availability.
• Validate the daily working plan of ZATCA IT applications.
• Review change requests related to IT applications and provide support during implementation.
• Monitor IT application health, safety, and performance to minimize potential damage and service outages.
• Recommend performance and hardware improvements, as well as resource optimization, to achieve IT application objectives and KPIs.
• Ensure appropriate communication and reporting of IT application performance to all stakeholders.

People Management

• Participate in the identification and recruitment of key talent.
• Guide, mentor, and support direct reports to execute duties according to set policies and processes.
• Develop individual performance objectives, provide necessary support, evaluate/appraise the team, and provide regular feedback on performance.
• Establish a high-performance working environment and promote ZATCA values.

Qualifications and Experience

• A minimum of 5-10 years of relevant experience is required for this role.

Work Environment

This is a full-time position based in Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Salary details will be disclosed during the recruitment process.