Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Application Support Developer

🎯 Role Definition

The Application Support Developer is a critical member of our technology team, owning the stability, maintainability and performance of key business applications. You will collaborate with development, operations and business users to diagnose, troubleshoot and resolve application issues, deliver enhancements, support user environments, and drive continuous improvement. This role demands strong technical skills, a service‑oriented mindset, excellent communication and the ability to translate user issues into reliable software solutions.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Help Desk / Technical Support Engineer
Junior Application Developer
Systems or Database Administrator

Advancement To:

Senior Application Support Developer
Application Support Team Lead / Support Engineering Manager
Application Reliability Engineer / DevOps Engineer

Lateral Moves:

Application Developer (enhancement focus)
Systems Analyst or Business Systems Developer
IT Operations Engineer or Platform Support Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Provide Tier 2 and Tier 3 support for business critical applications, monitor application health, investigate incidents, perform root‑cause analysis and deliver timely solutions.
Work closely with users, business stakeholders and technical teams to collect, triage and prioritise support tickets, ensuring SLAs are met and business impact minimised.
Debug and troubleshoot software defects in production and pre‑production environments, identify underlying code or configuration issues and coordinate fixes with development teams.
Deploy application changes, patches, hot‑fixes and updates through formal release management processes while verifying system stability and rollback mechanisms.
Analyse system logs, performance metrics, error reports and database queries to detect performance bottlenecks, latency issues or data integrity problems and propose corrective actions.
Manage database support activities including writing and tuning SQL queries, stored procedures, data migrations, clean‑ups and ensuring data consistency across systems.
Develop and maintain support automation scripts, monitoring tools, health checks, alerting frameworks and dashboards to proactively detect and respond to application problems.
Collaborate with development, QA and operations teams during UAT and production go‑lives to validate functionality, support user acceptance testing and ensure successful deployment.
Maintain and update comprehensive technical documentation, run‑books, incident reports, knowledge‑base articles and user support guides to ensure consistent knowledge transfer and operational continuity.
Participate in on‑call rotation, provide out‑of‑hours support when required, respond to production incidents, coordinate incident resolution and follow‑up with permanent fixes.
Coordinate with vendors and third‑party application providers to escalate, monitor and track external support issues, license updates, integration problems and service‑level failures.
Implement application‑configuration changes, system upgrades, environment refreshes and ensure proper validation and functional testing prior to release to production.
Assist in application onboarding, new module implementations and major software version upgrades to ensure business continuity, data integrity and minimal disruption.
Identify recurring support issues, document root‑cause patterns and drive continuous improvement initiatives to reduce ticket volume, streamline processes and enhance system stability.
Monitor application integrations, middleware, APIs and data flows, troubleshoot connectivity and interface issues, ensure end‑to‑end data accuracy and timely delivery across systems.
Collaborate with security, compliance and infrastructure teams to enforce application access controls, patch compliance, change‑control processes and audit requirements.
Conduct performance tuning and load‑testing activities when required, ensuring applications meet scalability, response‑time and throughput requirements under production loads.
Assist business and application owners with scheduled downtime planning, release windows, change coordination, environment readiness and communication to stakeholders and users.
Maintain strong partner relationships with business units, provide training and guidance to users on application features, enhancements and self‑service tools to reduce support dependency.
Review support metrics, ticket trends, user feedback and system performance reports to identify improvement areas, propose roadmap items and deliver operational excellence.

Secondary Functions

Support ad‑hoc development of small enhancements, scripts or automations that resolve recurring support issues or add minor new features.
Contribute to the organisation’s application support strategy and roadmap, recommending tools, monitoring platforms or process changes to increase efficiency and reliability.
Collaborate with business units to translate user support needs, feedback or improvement requests into development or enhancement backlog items.
Participate in agile ceremonies (sprint planning, status stand‑ups, retrospectives) within the support/development team to ensure responsiveness and continuous improvement.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Proficiency in diagnosing and debugging enterprise applications in production, analysing logs, tracing root causes, and executing corrective actions.
Solid experience with SQL and relational databases (e.g., MS SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL), including query writing, stored procedures, data migrations and performance tuning.
Strong understanding of application architecture, middleware, APIs, web services (REST/SOAP), message queues and system integration patterns.
Experience managing application deployments, patches, updates, hot‑fixes, configuration changes and environment management across Dev/UAT/Prod.
Hands‑on scripting or automation skills (PowerShell, Bash, Python, Shell) to build monitoring, self‑service remediation, health checks and automation of support tasks.
Knowledge of web/application servers (e.g., IIS, Tomcat, WebLogic), operating systems (Windows/Linux), network basics and performance monitoring tools.
Familiarity with incident management systems, ticketing tools, service‑desk processes, SLAs, on‑call support and escalation workflows.
Experience working in an Agile/DevOps environment, participating in sprints, collaborating with cross‑functional teams and ensuring fast recovery of systems.
Ability to build and maintain support documentation, run‑books, knowledge bases, technical guides, escalation procedures and user guides.
Understanding of application security, user access controls, patching compliance, service‑level monitoring, backup/restore and data integrity considerations.

Soft Skills

Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, able to liaise with business users, technical teams and third‑party vendors in a clear, professional manner.
Strong analytical and problem‑solving mindset, capable of breaking down complex incidents, identifying root causes and proposing pragmatic solutions.
Customer‑service orientation, showing patience, empathy and capacity to handle user‑facing support situations effectively.
Ability to prioritize multiple tasks, handle shifting priorities, manage downtime scenarios and perform under pressure in a live production context.
Collaborative team player who works closely with development, operations and quality teams to ensure seamless application support and delivery.
Detail‑oriented with high responsibility for application stability, data integrity and service availability.
Continuous learning mindset, staying current with evolving technology, support frameworks, monitoring tools and automation techniques.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, or a related technology discipline.
Preferred Education:
Professional certifications in support, ITIL, database administration or specific application technologies.
Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science
Information Systems
Software Engineering
Application/Systems Support

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:
2–4 years of application support, development or systems operations experience in an enterprise environment.
Preferred:
4+ years of experience combining application support, development, ticket management and on‑call incident resolution in complex, 24×7 business‑critical systems.