Service Manager

What makes Cognizant a unique place to work? The combination of rapid growth and an international and innovative environment! This is creating a lot of opportunities for people like YOU — people with an entrepreneurial spirit who want to make a difference in this world. At Cognizant, together with your colleagues from all around the world, you will collaborate on creating solutions for the world's leading companies and help them become more flexible, more innovative and successful.


Role Summary
The Service Manager is responsible for end‑to‑end ownership of application services for a global shipping client. The role includes service delivery governance, team leadership, vendor coordination, production stability, DevOps enablement, and continuous improvement across a complex application landscape. The position requires strong technical expertise, stakeholder management skills, and experience operating in a global onshore–offshore delivery model.
Key Roles & Responsibilities
Service Delivery & Client Relationship Management
Own end‑to‑end service delivery for a portfolio of business‑critical applications within the shipping domain
Act as the single point of contact for the client for application support, enhancements, and service improvements
Ensure SLA, KPI, and contractual commitments are consistently met or exceeded
Drive regular service governance meetings (weekly, monthly, quarterly reviews) with client stakeholders
Proactively identify risks, escalations, and improvement opportunities within the application landscape

Application & Platform Ownership
Maintain deep understanding of the client’s end‑to‑end application landscape, including dependencies, integrations, and data flows
Provide functional and technical oversight of the core and all applications in scope
Support and manage development and deployment through change Management
Ensure application stability, performance, security, and compliance across environments

Production Support & Operations
Lead L2/L3 production support activities, including incident, problem, and change management
Coordinate and execute weekend and after‑hours deployments, release rollouts, and hotfixes
Perform root cause analysis (RCA) for major incidents and drive permanent corrective actions
Ensure proper monitoring, alerting, and operational readiness processes are in place

Team Leadership & Offshore Delivery Management
Manage and mentor a team, including task allocation, performance reviews, and capability development
Ensure effective collaboration between onsite (Sweden) and offshore (India) teams
Drive continuous skill development and knowledge sharing within the team
Support hiring, onboarding, and ramp‑up of new team members

Vendor & Stakeholder Management
Coordinate activities across multiple client‑side and third‑party vendors
Ensure clear ownership, accountability, and alignment across vendors
Resolve inter‑vendor dependencies and delivery challenges
Maintain strong working relationships with client IT, business teams, and external partners

DevOps, CI/CD & Automation
Lead and support CI/CD implementation for all applications in scope
Drive DevOps adoption including build, deployment, and release automation
Collaborate with infrastructure and cloud teams for pipeline optimization
Promote DevOps best practices, version control, and release standardization

Cloud & Modernization Initiatives
Support client transformation initiatives by applying Azure cloud concepts
Contribute to cloud migration, modernization, and API enablement projects
Work closely with architects and platform teams to align legacy systems with cloud strategies

Compliance, Quality & Continuous Improvement
Ensure adherence to Cognizant delivery standards, ITIL practices, and client governance models
Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance service quality and operational efficiency
Support audits, security reviews, and compliance requirements
Contribute to transition activities, documentation, and service stabilization

Required Skills & Experience
15+ years of experience supporting enterprise applications in a service delivery or application management role
Strong hands‑on experience with PowerBuilder and Oracle backend systems
Lead requirement gathering and analysis, conduct requirement discussions for integration and enhancement projects, and translate business needs into technical solutions
Perform solution designing and provide technical direction for application enhancements, integrations, and modernization initiatives
Experience working with APIs and Azure API Management (APIM)
Proven experience implementing CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices
Strong experience in production support, incident management, and change management
Experience working in onshore–offshore delivery models
Strong stakeholder, vendor, and people management skills
Exposure to Azure cloud concepts and modernization initiatives
Willingness to support after‑hours/weekend deployments when required

Seniority & Value Positioning
Long‑term client knowledge (15+ years) ensures continuity, reduced risk, and faster decision‑making
Combination of legacy systems expertise + modern DevOps and Azure exposure
Strong leadership capability bridging offshore teams and Nordic client expectations
Proven ownership mindset aligned with managed services and application lifecycle accountability