Securing Energy for Europe GmbH (SEFE GmbH) is a major European energy company focused on maintaining the security of supply and generating commercial value in Europe. Its main business areas include supplying energy to customers, energy trading, gas transportation and the operation of gas storage facilities. SEFE GmbH is an internationally operating group consisting of around 50 companies in 16 countries in Europe, Asia and North America. The SEFE Group employs approximately 1,500 employees, around 200 of whom work at its Berlin headquarters.
SEFE Marketing & Trading Limited (SM&T) is an integral part of the SEFE Group. Headquartered in London, SM&T is an agile multi-commodity trader and trading partner. With deep experience in derivatives, digital and analytics and ready for the opportunities arising from the energy transition, we seek to create value, both on a proprietary basis and for its partners, in all key European gas, LNG, power and environmental products markets.
Our culture is defined by our people. Through living our values every day, we continue to create a culture that enables us all to succeed. We work as one team with our customers, our parent company and each other in order to understand each other’s needs. With an unstoppable passion for excellence, growth and learning, we’re committed to creating an environment that fosters the development of knowledge, skills and experience, so that our people can thrive and prosper in their careers with us. We believe that we have the best team in the industry which makes us a trusted partner across international capital and energy markets. Our diverse employee base, with a wealth of expertise, knowledge and experience makes SM&T a truly exciting place to work. We encourage new ideas and initiatives as innovative thinking is central to how we do business. Most importantly, we are a growing and developing business where inspired individuals can make a difference and help shape our future.
Role objectives
The Application Support Lead (ASL) is accountable for the application support services of the middle and back office application (MOBO) portfolio. The ASL role has full accountability for the support services for the MOBO portfolio and is responsible for operationally maintaining, supporting and minimizing the adverse impact of Incidents through rapid resolution and proactive maintenance.
The successful applicant will lead a team of 5 resources providing this range of second line support services balancing team leadership and line management with expected hands-on operational duties.
The application portfolio includes a wide range of applications, including those primarily used for ETRM, market data management, credit risk management, market risk management, commercial contract confirmations, reconciliation, regulatory reporting, invoicing, batch processing and business reporting.
Duties & Responsibilities
- Manage and lead a core team of Application Support professionals, supporting their career development and ensuring they have the necessary skills to perform their duties
- Accountable for ensuring high quality operational and technical application and systems support to internal business & IT functions across the MOBO portfolio
- Responsible for minimizing the adverse impact of incidents through rapid resolution and proactively preventing potential future incidents. This includes but not limited to:
- Line management of the Back-Office Application Support team to ensure high quality support and maintenance of the MOBO portfolio
- Co-ordinate, and provide resources for, the resolution of incidents in line with agreed policy, process and SLAs
- Act as single point of contact for communication for all MOBO incidents
- Contribute to the planning of application releases and configuration changes and ensure successful implementation of all such changes including approvals and managing the business communications and post release environment availability
- Accountable for Problem Management processes within the MOBO Application team. Identifying underlying issues, providing short-term workaround/fixes while liaising with development teams to acquire long-term fixes
- Effectively managing major production incidents through the MIM processes, taking complete ownership until closure of the incident. Ensuring regular updates are provided and liaising with the relevant support teams to ensure minimal downtime/disruption
- Build a strong knowledge management repository across the applications within the team ensuring all the operational, application support handover and process documents are maintained and up to date
- In conjunction with the other ASLs, develop, implement and maintain appropriate processes and procedures to ensure efficient, effective and consistent support
- Contribute to projects as required and managed by Programme Delivery, providing suitable resources and expertise to Project teams. Responsible for supporting Group IT projects where applicable and owning/managing Apps Support internal projects
- In conjunction with Delivery Leads, ensure that new systems or major systems changes are adequately handed over to the Application Support team and can be fully supported from go-live
- Provide timely and expert advice on emerging trends and issues affecting applications. Develop strategies to allow Application Support to manage resultant problems
- Proactively define and implement improvement initiatives on the areas of performance, availability and automation of the repetitive tasks to increase the quality of service provided thereby reducing the quantity of incidents on applications and/or reducing the time to closure
- In conjunction with the other ASLs, design and implement appropriate metrics for reporting on key performance and quality indicators, particularly in terms of in-depth trend analysis
- Accountable for the completion of assigned deliverables with little day to day management
- Flexibility to work OOH to support the business needs
- Build and maintain day-to-day working relationships with the business community to increase customer knowledge, capability and system satisfaction, as well as within the IT community to maintain and improve the services offered by the support function (including vendors).
Skills & Competencies
Mandatory:
- Ability to deliver and understand the importance of customer service excellence. Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written
- Confidence to challenge when required
- Comfortable making decisions under pressure
- Ability to prioritise to meet strict deadlines
- Ability to work autonomously
- Adaptability to continually changing demands and priorities
- Experience of applications support in the financial services or energy trading sectors
- Strong stakeholder management and interpersonal skills
- Technically proficient with: PowerShell, MS Windows Server (2008/2012) and MS SQL (2008/2012/2014), Web Technologies, MS Windows 7.
Advantageous:
- Technically proficient in ActiveBatch v12 or above, VBA, Power BI, TFS.
Experience
- Experience in providing application support in a fast-paced environment and distinguish themselves by being proactive in providing support
- Experience as an application support analyst or similar in the financial services or energy trading sectors
- Hands on experience in the implementation and ongoing management of trading applications and associated interfaces
- Extensive exposure to the full trade lifecycle
- Experience of working with SQL, competent in investigating data related issues
- Understanding of the energy trading industry including product types
- Experience of working within the ITIL framework
- Experience of end of day batch processing (preferably Endur) and business reporting
- Experience of working with trade pricing tools (preferably Zema)
- Knowledge and understanding market and credit risk applications, processes and generic data flows
- Knowledge and understanding back office applications, processes and data flows including settlement, confirmations, invoicing, regulatory reporting and reconciliation
Advantageous:
- Experience of working with Energy Trading and Risk Management (ETRM) systems
- Experience of working with Trayport and/or EXXETA Energy Trader.
- Team Leadership including development and performance management
Education
- Degree (or equivalent) in a numerate or computing related subject
- Professional certifications in desired skills areas an advantage.
