Job Description

L3 Application Support Engineer

Location: Charlotte preferred; open to remote

Type: Contract-to-Hire (Remote)

Duration: 12 months

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced Application Support Engineer (L3) to join our Run Support team. This role provides advanced technical expertise, incident resolution, and long-term application stability improvements. The L3 engineer acts as the final escalation point for critical issues, leads root cause analysis (RCA), and partners with Product and Development teams to ensure that defects (bugs) and feature requests (stories) are properly documented, prioritized, and delivered through Azure DevOps (ADO).

The L3 Application Support Engineer plays a pivotal role in reducing technical debt, improving backlog quality, and strengthening collaboration between Run Support, Product, and Development teams.

Key Responsibilities

Incident & Problem Management

• Own resolution of high-severity and complex incidents escalated from L2.
• Lead root cause analysis (RCA) and ensure corrective actions are implemented.
• Ensure adherence to SLAs for incident resolution and problem closure.
• Act as Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Tier 1 applications.

Bug & Story Management (Azure DevOps)

• Collaborate with Product Owners to document, prioritize, and manage bugs and user stories in ADO.
• Ensure clear acceptance criteria and proper linkage between incidents, bugs, and backlog items.
• Partner with Development teams to validate bug fixes and story completions in lower environments.
• Track recurring incidents and translate them into actionable backlog items in ADO.
• Provide visibility into backlog health, ensuring business-critical items are prioritized.

Continuous Improvement & Automation

• Identify and implement automation opportunities for monitoring, triage, and resolution.
• Contributes to the development of proactive health checks and preventive measures.
• Support ongoing improvement of runbooks, SOPs, and knowledge base.

Release & Change Support

• Participate in release readiness activities, deployments, and post-release validations.
• Validate bug fixes and story releases in lower environments before production rollout.
• Support release pipelines by ensuring successful delivery of backlog items through ADO.

Leadership & Mentorship

• Mentor L1 and L2 support engineers to improve technical depth and incident handling.
• Share best practices for incident-to-bug/story conversion in ADO.
• Advocate for customer and business impact during sprint planning and prioritization.

Core Competencies

• Expert problem solver with the ability to navigate complex technical environments
• High-level technical generalist with broad system knowledge (not a deep specialist)
• Full-stack application understanding (web front end, back-end services, and databases)
• Strong technical troubleshooting, problem-isolation, and root cause analysis (RCA) expertise
• Ability to identify failing components or functions and resolve issues when possible
• Ability to escalate to Development with clear, actionable technical detail when resolution is not possible
• Proficiency in Azure DevOps (ADO) for backlog, incident-to-bug/story translation, and release management
• Ability to translate incidents into actionable bugs and stories with clear business value
• Strong SQL / T-SQL skills for querying, stored procedure execution, and troubleshooting batch and ETL processes (non-DBA level)
• .NET and C# development experience
• AWS experience supporting applications and services (e.g., S3, SQS, Amazon Q, containerization)
• Hands-on experience with Azure DevOps (ADO) and Visual Studio
• Experience automating repetitive operational or support processes
• Knowledge of ITIL practices (Incident, Problem, Change)
• Strong collaboration skills across Dev, QA, Product, and cross-functional teams
• Ability to operate under pressure while maintaining stakeholder confidence
• Financial or accounting system experience (preferred)

Professional Experience & Education

Required:

• 5+ years of experience in application support, production support, or software operations.
• Strong hands-on experience with ticketing systems (Helix) and backlog management tools (e.g., Jira, Azure DevOps).
• Expertise in monitoring platforms (Splunk, Dynatrace, Zabbix, AlertBot).
• Experience leading root cause analysis and managing complex production incidents.

Preferred:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• Certifications such as ITIL Intermediate/Expert, Splunk Power User, Dynatrace Associate, or Certified Problem Manager.
• Familiarity with Agile and DevOps practices, including backlog grooming and sprint planning.
• Experience in enterprise-scale environments with complex application landscapes.

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