Lead Application Manager

Rainforest Alliance • Amsterdam, NL

4d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Lead Application Manager is accountable for the end-to-end management of a portfolio of business-critical applications, ensuring they are secure, robust, cost-effective, and fit for purpose. You will provide clear service ownership across the full application lifecycle. It balances stability of BAU operations with continuous improvement. Additionally, it leads delivery of agreed changes from requirements and design through testing, deployment, and transition to BAU.
The Lead Application Manager works with business owners, product and delivery teams, architects, security, data, and third-party suppliers. We aim this collaboration at defining service expectations and ensuring support, change control, and performance management. You will lead operational governance for assigned applications, understanding, prioritising, and addressing incidents, problems, risks, dependencies, and technical debt, and to stakeholders, delivering measurable service outcomes.
You will report to the Solution Delivery Director.

Requirements

• Degree or equivalent experience in Information Systems, Computer Science, or a related discipline.
• ITIL Foundation (or higher) or equivalent service management qualification/experience.
• Agile/Lean certification or demonstrable experience working in Agile delivery environments.
• Vendor management or contract management training/experience
• Cloud fundamentals (e.g. AWS Cloud Practitioner, Azure Fundamentals) or equivalent experience operating cloud-hosted applications.
• Security, risk, or compliance-related certification (desirable) and/or practical experience supporting audits and control requirements.

Nice To Haves

• Security, risk, or compliance-related certification

Responsibilities

• Oversee application services across their full lifecycle (run, grow, transform, and retire)
• Lead delivery of enhancements—from requirements through to deployment and BAU
• Drive operational excellence across incident, problem, and change management
• Manage application performance, availability, and risk—using data to improve outcomes
• Oversee integrations, dependencies, and technical architecture to ensure stability and scalability
• Be the main escalation point for major incidents and business-critical issues
• Partner with business stakeholders to define priorities, SLAs, and service improvements
• Manage third-party suppliers and ensure strong performance against SLAs
• Identify and reduce technical debt while optimising cost and performance

Benefits

• Opportunities for professional growth and career development.
• Remote working flexibility and flexible hybrid working environment.
• Competitive salary package.
• A favourable time‑off policy, including annual leave and Resilience Days, to help you recharge and balance life outside of work.
• Employee assistance programs
• Wellbeing activities
• Sabbatical opportunities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Associate degree