Job Summary
The Application Engineer focuses on administration, monitoring and maintenance of custom and/or third party applications, services and related infrastructure components. This individual will have demonstrated experience in troubleshooting problems, product improvement, and effective communication with both IT and business partners.
The Application Engineer embodies exemplary professional conduct, serving as an inspiring role model for peers while fostering collaboration and exercising influence with tact and efficacy to achieve shared objectives.
Under minimal supervision, this role maintains, monitors, and manages software application systems, services, and related information technology components. This position must support secure applications based upon requirements and must be proactive in delivering successful solutions, including helping define requirements, application deployment, implementing best practices, supporting testing efforts, and providing documentation while working with business partners. This role is also responsible for proactively providing project tasks and status updates. This role will provide guidance to junior team members.
About UFCU
Our Credit Union was founded in 1936 and has grown to serve members throughout Texas and beyond. At UFCU, we are more than just a financial institution, and our people are more than just employees. We are dedicated to our purpose of empowering our Members to achieve financial success and build brighter futures.
In pursuit of our aspiration that UFCU is loved by millions of Members and built to thrive for generations, we are guided by our values:
Purposefully Member-Obsessed
We are driven by a profound sense of empathy to deeply understand our Members’ needs and preferences, what brighter futures means to them, and the obstacles in their way. We act in our Members’ best interests, forever seeking to empower their financial success.
Possibilities Reimagined
We are inspired to courageously experiment, learn, and iterate in pursuit of positive impact for our Members, UFCU, and coworkers. We challenge assumptions, embrace diverse perspectives, and make use of data and insights.
Performance Excellence Rooted in Unwavering Integrity
We do the right thing, always. We champion teamwork, accountability, continuous improvement, and celebrate successful outcomes of others, fostering an inclusive environment of excellence and collaboration.
Essential Functions
Application Support:
- Serve as the subject matter expert for applications used by UFCU staff and members.
- Take full ownership of key business applications, ensuring high availability, performance, and reliability through proactive monitoring and responsive support.
- Partner with business units to gather and analyze requirements, translating them into effective application solutions that align with organizational goals.
- Design, implement, and configure scalable application environments that support evolving business needs and technical standards.
- Install, configure, maintain and enhance SaaS and On-Premises application configurations to adapt to changing business processes and technology landscapes.
- Drive innovation by designing and implementing new features and enhancements that improve application functionality and user experience.
- Develop, optimize, and monitor automated workflows and batch processes to ensure consistent and error-free execution.
- Collaborate with third-party vendors to resolve issues, manage upgrades, and apply security patches in a timely and efficient manner.
Incident Management, Service Availability and Request Fulfillment:
- Demonstrate a high standard of service excellence by taking full ownership of incidents and driving effective resolutions.
- Conduct proactive capacity and performance planning to ensure systems appropriately meet customer demand
- Troubleshoot and resolve complex incidents and issues across diverse systems, ensuring minimal business disruption and meeting service level agreements (SLAs) while documenting application recovery procedures
- Perform regular disaster recovery testing and maintain supporting infrastructure and procedures to ensure the readiness of critical systems and business continuity during disruptions.
- Design and deploy effective monitoring solutions that minimize false alerts and enable rapid incident detection and response.
- Perform routine root cause analyses and implement corrective actions to prevent recurrence and enhance system reliability.
- Provide Tier 3 support for a broad range of client systems and peripherals, including end-user devices, scanners, and specialized printers.
Demonstrates a commitment to working effectively as a team and to ongoing self-development:
- Participate in after-hours systems support activities an on-call rotation to ensure 24/7 application support and rapid incident response.
- Stay current with emerging technologies and industry trends to inform strategic decisions and technical improvements.
- Pursuing continuous professional development and actively seeking opportunities for learning and skill enhancement.
- Proactively contributes to IT team objectives by identifying improvement opportunities and recommending innovative solutions.
- Effectively manage time and resources, including cross-functional coordination and allocation of team efforts for testing and implementation.
- Mentor and support the growth of Application Engineers, fostering a culture of knowledge sharing.
Other:
- Perform other duties as assigned
- Adhere to all company policies, procedures, and business ethics codes
- Completes required regulatory training as assigned.
- Maintains strict adherence to and compliance with all laws, rules, regulations, and internal controls specific to the role, including but not limited to Bank Secrecy Act, Anti-Money Laundering, USA Patriot Act, OFAC and Fair Lending regulations.
Knowledge/Skills/Abilities
Knowledge
- Strong understanding of enterprise IT environments, including system, server, and network architecture.
- Strong understanding of cybersecurity principles relevant to application support and deployment.
- Competent with application integration, middleware technologies, and data exchange standards (e.g., XML, JSON, SOAP).
- Familiarity with data storage formats and database technologies (e.g., SQL)
- Familiarity with encryption, authentication, and authorization protocols.
Skills
- Strong analytical and diagnostic skills for resolving application issues.
- Organizational, process management, and time management skills, with the ability to proactively and consistently meet deadlines with minimal supervision.
- Strong written, verbal, interpersonal, collaborative, and active listening communication skills.
Abilities
- Ability to interpret logs and system metrics to identify root causes.
- Ability to analyze system requirements and translate them into technical solutions.
- Ability in solving problems and researching issues with minimal supervision.
- Ability to engage effectively with both technical teams and business stakeholders.
- Proven ability to foster collaboration, motivate cross-functional teams, and drive collective success.
- Ability to effectively communicate with both IT and business partners
- Ability to work collaboratively with others and inspire teams
- Ability to work in a fast-paced environment
Competencies
- Demonstrating Member Obsession
- Puts themselves in the Member’s shoes
- Looks for friction points
- Makes it personalized and easy
- Demonstrating Performance Excellence
- Sets standards for elevating excellence
- Ensures elevated quality
- Takes responsibility
- Conducts continuous improvement
- Challenges current thinking
- Approaches change with a positive mindset
Experience
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, or a related field (or equivalent combination of education and experience).
- 3+ years of experience providing application or systems support in an enterprise environment (including incident response, problem management, and stakeholder communication).
- 2+ years of experience working with APIs and integrations (e.g., REST/SOAP, JSON/XML), including troubleshooting connectivity and data issues.
- 1+ year of experience supporting cloud-based solutions (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS), including configuration, monitoring, and access/security considerations.
- Must be bondable
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience supporting applications in a regulated environment (e.g., financial services), with familiarity around audits, controls, and data protection expectations.
- Scripting experience (PowerShell, Python, or similar) for automation, troubleshooting, reporting, or administrative tasks.
- Experience with job scheduling, managed file transfer, and/or automation platforms (e.g., OpCon, MOVEit, or similar tools).
- Experience with ITSM ticketing tools (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira) and working knowledge of ITIL practices (incident, problem, change, and request management).
- Experience with containerization technologies (e.g., Docker) and deploying or supporting container-based applications.
- Working knowledge of SQL and relational databases for data validation, reporting, and troubleshooting (e.g., query basics, performance considerations).
Things You Need to Know Before You Apply
PHYSICAL DEMANDS
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee in order to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
- While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit; use hands to finger, handle or feel; reach with hands and arms; and talk or hear.
- Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision and ability to adjust focus.
- The employee is frequently required to stand and walk.
- Employee will make extensive use of the telephone requiring the ability to effectively and accurately explain complex information.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
- This position is available to work from home for 50% of the time. This schedule may change at UFCU’s discretion and as safety needs dictate.
- This position may involve periodic stressful conditions.
- May occasionally require an adjusted work schedule, overtime, and evening/weekend hours.
- Frequent computer use at a workstation up to two hours at a time.
- The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.
