Operations Lead

Job Description We are seeking an experienced Operations Lead to take ownership of day-to-day production and service operations within a complex enterprise environment in Japan. This is a hands-on technical operations position, not a high-level people-management role. The successful candidate will be comfortable working directly on operational and technical issues while also acting as a trusted customer-facing representative. The role requires a strong combination of production operations, incident management, technical troubleshooting and customer communication. You will be expected to independently manage operational activities, coordinate the resolution of critical incidents, communicate effectively with customer stakeholders, and demonstrate continuous improvement in service performance. ■Key Responsibilities • Take ownership of day-to-day production and service operations. • Act as a key operational interface between technical teams and customer stakeholders. • Lead and coordinate the response to production incidents and service-impacting issues. • Provide clear and timely customer communication throughout critical incidents. • Perform and coordinate technical troubleshooting across application, infrastructure, network and database layers. • Prepare, review and present Root Cause Analysis (RCA) documentation following major incidents. • Lead or actively contribute to weekly, monthly and quarterly customer service review meetings. • Prepare and present operational dashboards, service reports and executive-level presentations. • Track operational KPIs, SLAs, incident trends, availability and service performance. • Identify recurring operational issues and drive corrective and preventive actions. • Demonstrate measurable service improvement and operational value beyond basic SLA compliance. • Work closely with application, infrastructure, database, network, cloud and other technical teams to isolate and resolve issues. • Review monitoring and alerting effectiveness and recommend improvements. • Support operations across cloud, on-premise and/or hybrid technology environments. • Maintain clear operational documentation, incident records and closure reports. • Independently manage technical and operational activities with limited supervision. Job Requirements ■Required Experience • Approximately 15+ years of experience within production operations, application operations, service operations, technical support or a related field. • Strong hands-on experience supporting complex, business-critical production environments. • Significant customer-facing experience, particularly within enterprise environments. • Proven experience presenting operational reviews, incident updates and service reports directly to customers. • Experience managing major incidents from initial identification through customer communication, technical resolution, RCA and formal closure. • Strong experience preparing and presenting RCA documentation to customers. • Ability to explain complex technical incidents clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. • Experience producing customer-facing operational dashboards and executive presentations. • Experience leading or contributing significantly to weekly, monthly and quarterly service review meetings. • Strong understanding of operational KPIs, SLAs, availability, incident management and service improvement. • Strong troubleshooting skills across: ◦ Applications ◦ Networks ◦ Databases ◦ Infrastructure ◦ Cloud and hybrid environments • Experience with enterprise monitoring, observability and alerting tools. • Good understanding of effective monitoring and alerting strategies. • Ability to remain calm, structured and customer-focused during high-severity production incidents. ■Language Requirements • Fluent Japanese communication skills across speaking, reading and writing, ideally equivalent to JLPT N1/business-fluent level. • Strong English communication skills for working within an international organisation and with regional/global technical teams.