Incident Manager - Banking & Payments
Description
Incident Manager - Banking & Payments
About the Role:
Remote, India - Long-Term Contract
We are looking for an experienced Incident Manager to lead the end-to-end management of major and critical incidents impacting production services within the banking and payments environment.
The ideal candidate will be responsible for driving rapid service restoration, coordinating cross-functional technical teams, maintaining clear stakeholder communication, and ensuring effective post-incident follow-up.
The role requires strong leadership, communication, and decision-making skills, with the ability to manage high-impact incidents in a fast-paced production environment.
Key Responsibilities:
- Own and manage the end-to-end lifecycle of major and critical incidents, from identification through resolution and closure.
- Lead major incident bridges and coordinate technical teams across application, infrastructure, database, network, security, and vendor functions.
- Drive timely troubleshooting and service restoration, ensuring incidents are managed within agreed SLAs.
- Establish clear roles, responsibilities, and action plans during major incidents to accelerate resolution.
- Provide timely and structured updates to business stakeholders, senior management, and relevant leadership teams throughout the incident lifecycle.
- Act as the central point of coordination and communication during high-severity production incidents.
- Ensure appropriate escalation and engagement of technical teams and third-party vendors when required.
- Track incident progress, risks, dependencies, and resolution actions through to closure.
- Drive Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and ensure corrective and preventive actions are identified, documented, and tracked to completion.
- Conduct Post-Incident Reviews (PIRs) for major incidents and identify opportunities to prevent recurrence.
- Monitor incident trends and recurring issues and recommend improvements to production support and operational processes.
- Maintain accurate incident records, timelines, communications, and supporting documentation.
- Ensure adherence to ITIL-based incident, problem, and change management processes.
- Develop and track key incident management metrics, including response time, resolution time, SLA adherence, and recurring incidents.
- Continuously improve the major incident management framework, processes, communication standards, and operational readiness.
Key Skills & Expertise:
- Major Incident Management
- ITIL / IT Service Management
- Production Operations
- Major Incident Bridge Management
- Service Restoration & Crisis Coordination
- Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
- Corrective & Preventive Actions (CAPA)
- Stakeholder Management
- Executive & Leadership Communication
- Incident Escalation & Coordination
- SLA & KPI Management
- Problem & Change Management
- Vendor Management
- Post-Incident Review (PIR)
- Banking & Payments Domain
Preferred Qualifications:
- 6 - 8 years of experience in Incident Management, Production Operations, IT Service Management, or related functions.
- Proven experience managing major and high-severity production incidents in business-critical environments.
- Strong understanding of ITIL incident, problem, and change management practices.
- Experience coordinating multiple technical teams during critical incidents and driving timely service restoration.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with both technical teams and senior business stakeholders.
- Strong analytical, decision-making, leadership, and problem-solving capabilities.
- Experience in banking, financial services, payments, or other highly regulated environments is preferred.