Application Support Engineer at Los Angeles Times in El Segundo, CA

The Application Support Engineer is responsible for supporting, configuring, maintaining, and optimizing enterprise applications that support critical business operations. This role ensures applications remain reliable, secure, and available by monitoring system performance, troubleshooting technical issues, implementing configuration changes, supporting integrations, and participating in application upgrades and enhancements.
Working closely with business users, software developers, infrastructure teams, cybersecurity, and third-party vendors, the Application Support Engineer provides technical expertise to resolve application issues, improve system performance, automate operational processes, and support continuous improvement initiatives. The role serves as a technical resource for assigned applications while contributing to projects that enhance application stability, scalability, and operational efficiency.
Responsibilities:
• Support the administration, configuration, maintenance, and optimization of assigned enterprise applications to ensure reliable, secure, and efficient business operations.
• Troubleshoot and resolve application, integration, API, database, and system issues by identifying root causes, implementing corrective actions, and escalating complex issues when appropriate.
• Monitor application health, availability, performance, and system capacity using enterprise monitoring tools to proactively identify and resolve potential issues.
• Configure application settings, security permissions, user access, workflows, and system integrations in accordance with business requirements and organizational standards.
• Develop and maintain SQL queries, PowerShell, Python, Bash, or similar scripts to automate routine tasks, improve operational efficiency, and support application monitoring and reporting.
• Support application deployments, upgrades, patches, configuration changes, testing activities, and production releases while following established change management processes.
• Collaborate with software developers, infrastructure, networking, cloud, cybersecurity, database teams, vendors, and business stakeholders to implement enhancements and resolve technical issues.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, system configurations, support procedures, knowledge base articles, and operational documentation to improve support efficiency and knowledge sharing.
• Support incident, problem, and service request management activities while meeting established service level agreements (SLAs) and contributing to continuous service improvement initiatives.
• Generate reports, dashboards, and application performance metrics to support operational decision-making and identify opportunities for process improvements.
• Coordinate with software vendors to troubleshoot application issues, support upgrades, and resolve technical problems.
• Participate in disaster recovery testing, system validation, business continuity planning, and production support activities.
• Other duties as assigned.
Requirements:
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, Software Engineering and 3+ years of experience supporting enterprise applications, SaaS platforms, cloud applications, or business systems OR 5+ years of equivalent progressive experience supporting enterprise applications, SaaS platforms, cloud applications, or business systems.
• Experience supporting enterprise business applications in production environments.
• Experience troubleshooting application issues involving databases, APIs, integrations, and application configurations.
• Working knowledge of REST APIs, web services, integration technologies, and data exchange processes.
• Experience writing SQL queries for troubleshooting, reporting, and data analysis.
• Experience using PowerShell, Python, Bash, or similar scripting languages to automate operational tasks is preferred.
• Working knowledge of software development lifecycle (SDLC), change management, and IT service management practices.
• Experience supporting cloud-based applications and platforms such as Microsoft Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud Platform.
• Understanding of application security, authentication, user provisioning, role-based access, and security best practices.
• Experience with application monitoring, logging, and performance monitoring tools.
• Familiarity with reporting and analytics tools such as Power BI, Tableau, Looker, or similar platforms.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with technical teams, business users, and third-party vendors.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities while maintaining attention to detail and meeting deadlines.
Preferred Qualifications:
• Experience supporting media, publishing, broadcasting, subscription, CRM, ERP, or customer-facing business applications.
• Experience supporting application integrations using REST APIs, middleware, or ETL tools.
• Familiarity with ITIL service management principles.
• Experience participating in application implementations, upgrades, or migration projects.
• Knowledge of relational database design and performance optimization.
• Relevant certifications such as ITIL Foundation, Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, AWS Cloud Practitioner, CompTIA Network+, Security+, or similar technical certifications.
• Experience supporting SaaS and hybrid cloud environments.
• Experience using ticketing systems such as ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, or similar platforms.

The L.A. Times is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes all qualified applicants regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We actively work to create an inclusive environment where all of our employees can thrive. This Privacy Notice for Los Angeles Times sets forth how we will use the information we obtain when you apply for a position with us. Explore our company history, achievement, values, mission and more on our career site.

The pay scale the Company reasonably expects to pay for this position at the time of the posting is $95,000 to $110,000 and takes into account a wide range of factors including but not limited to skill set, experience, training, licenses, certifications, and other business or organizational needs. Compensation will be determined based on the above factors along with the requirements of the position. At the L.A. Times, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for the role. Please visit our career site to view the benefits available to our employees. We recommend adding our applicant tracking system domain (@dayforce.com) as a safe sender or contact, sometimes these emails get filtered to candidates' spam folders.