Production Operations Lead

Benefits: 401(k) Dental insurance Health insurance Paid time off Vision insurance iQuasar LLC has an exciting opportunity for a Production Operations Lead to join our growing team. In this role, the Production Operations Lead will coordinate day-to-day production O&M execution for an IRS opportunity. This role supports 24x7 operational continuity, incident response, monitoring, RCA, patch/vulnerability remediation support, backup/restore validation, DR support, operational reporting, and production-readiness coordination. The role is operationally senior but is not a Government PM, cybersecurity authority, DBA, or infrastructure administrator. We are seeking a Production Operations Lead for a contract position. Position: Production Operations Lead Position Type: Full-time-Remote Role Specific Duties/ Role Responsibilities: Lead operational support for production API gateway environments, including monitoring, incident response, triage, restoration coordination, and service continuity. Ensure incidents and service requests are logged, tracked, updated, and closed in ServiceNow or equivalent IRS-approved ITSM tooling. Support P1/P2 response processes, escalation, communications, restoration tracking, post-incident review, and RCA development. Coordinate with gateway engineers, Government technical leads, cybersecurity, infrastructure, network, identity, CI/CD, database, and monitoring teams for issue resolution. Track and support patching, vulnerability remediation, certificate updates, configuration changes, backup/restore validation, DR exercises, and production-readiness checks. Maintain operational runbooks, incident playbooks, knowledge articles, dashboard evidence, SLA metrics, and monthly/quarterly operational reporting inputs. Support operational continuity across IBM webMethods, the modernized gateway product, and any approved dual-run period. Required Qualifications: 7+ years of IT operations, production support, SRE, platform operations, application operations, middleware operations, or related experience. 4+ years supporting production systems with formal incident, change, problem, and release-management processes. Experience supporting 24x7 or mission-critical production environments with defined SLAs. Hands-on experience with ServiceNow or comparable ITSM tools. Experience with incident triage, RCA, corrective-action tracking, operational reporting, monitoring dashboards, and escalation management. Familiarity with API gateways, middleware, integration platforms, web services, or application-layer platform support. Experience supporting vulnerability remediation, patch coordination, backup/restore validation, DR exercises, and operational readiness. Strong written communication skills for RCA, status reporting, runbooks, and operational documentation. Preferred Qualifications: Active IRS MBI or recent IRS suitability Experience operating enterprise API gateway or middleware platforms such as IBM webMethods, Kong, Apigee, MuleSoft, Azure API Management, AWS API Gateway, IBM API Connect, or WSO2. Experience with AppDynamics, ELK, Splunk, OpenTelemetry, Grafana/Prometheus, or comparable observability platforms. Experience supporting high-volume transaction systems, hybrid cloud/on-prem environments, OpenShift/Kubernetes, or containerized production platforms. Experience supporting FedRAMP, FISMA, NIST SP 800-53, IRS IRM 10.8, IRS Publication 4812, or comparable federal security-control environments. Filing season, peak-event, or other mission-critical federal production support experience. ITIL Foundation or comparable ITSM/process certification. iQuasar LLC is a proud partner of the Military Spouse Employment Partnership (MSEP) and the Virginia Values Veterans (V3) Program, reflecting our strong commitment to supporting military spouses, veterans, and inclusive hiring practices. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital/parental/veteran status, disability, genetic information, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, military service, non-merit factors, or any other characteristics protected by applicable law. This is a remote position. Compensation: $130,000.00 - $150,000.00 per year