DescriptionThe Senior Lead, HR Application Maintenance is accountable for the stable, secure, compliant, and continuously improving operation of the global HR technology portfolio, including Oracle E-Business Suite, SAP SuccessFactors Talent Acquisition, ServiceNow HR Service Delivery, and the APIs, middleware, and file-transfer services that connect them. This role serves as the senior Technology Operations partner to HR, HR Shared Services, Talent Acquisition, product teams, and enterprise technology functions. It leads day-to-day application support, major incident response, problem elimination, release and change execution, minor enhancements, controls, service reporting, and operational readiness. The Senior Lead directs a vendor-managed service team and coordinates internal and external specialists to deliver against business priorities, service levels, and quality standards. Success requires a strong customer-service mindset, command of ITIL practices, sound technical judgment across integrated HR platforms, and the ability to translate HR needs into reliable, scalable, and supportable solutions while protecting sensitive employee and candidate data.
Key Roles & ResponsibilitiesLead HR Application Service Delivery and Operations (35%)- Own the health, availability, performance, security, supportability, and lifecycle of Oracle EBS HR, SuccessFactors Talent Acquisition, ServiceNow HRSD, and dependent integrations.
- Lead incident and major-incident response; establish business impact, recovery priorities, stakeholder communications, escalation paths, and post-incident actions.
- Drive problem management and root-cause analysis, ensuring permanent corrective actions, known-error documentation, monitoring improvements, and reduction of repeat incidents.
- Govern requests, access, batch schedules, interfaces, production controls, environment readiness, capacity, disaster recovery, and operational documentation.
- Publish meaningful service reporting and insights on SLA/XLA performance, backlog, aging, availability, defects, demand, recurring issues, customer experience, risk, and improvement outcomes.
Key Roles & Responsibilities (Continued)Direct the Vendor-Managed Service Team (25%)- Set priorities and daily direction for functional, technical, integration, and platform specialists; balance global demand, severity, business calendars, and resource capacity.
- Hold providers accountable for contractual commitments, service levels, quality, productivity, documentation, security, and timely escalation; lead operational and service-review governance.
- Validate estimates, staffing, skills, coverage, and delivery plans; remove blockers and coordinate across multiple vendors and internal technology teams.
- Maintain sustainable knowledge through support procedures, system and data-flow documentation, cross-training, succession coverage, and disciplined knowledge transfer.
- Coach vendor and internal team members in customer service, ITIL practices, HR process context, problem ownership, and clear stakeholder communication.
Key Roles & Responsibilities (Continued)Partner with HR and Deliver Change (20%)- Serve as a trusted technology partner to HR, Talent Acquisition, HR Shared Services, product owners, regional teams, and control owners; translate needs into actionable, supportable solutions.
- Prioritize break/fix, service requests, minor enhancements, technical debt, and lifecycle work using business value, customer impact, compliance, risk, effort, and global reuse.
- Lead solution review, testing strategy, business acceptance, release planning, change approvals, deployment, communications, training readiness, and post-production stabilization.
- Coordinate SaaS releases, Oracle updates, ServiceNow upgrades, middleware changes, and enterprise dependencies while preserving global design standards and minimizing operational risk.
Key Roles & Responsibilities (Continued)Govern Integrations, Data Protection, Controls, and Resilience (10%)- Oversee end-to-end interface monitoring and reconciliation across APIs, middleware, scheduled jobs, and managed file transfers; ensure clear ownership and rapid recovery from failures.
- Protect employee and candidate information through least-privilege access, segregation of duties, secure data handling, retention, audit evidence, and partnership with Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Control Owners.
- Ensure compliance with change, release, access, SDLC, audit, business-continuity, and disaster-recovery requirements; remediate control gaps and operational risks promptly.
Drive Strategy, Continuous Improvement, and Value (10%)- Maintain an operational roadmap covering platform lifecycle, resilience, automation, self-service, observability, technical debt, integration simplification, and service-experience improvements.
- Use trend analysis, Lean/continuous-improvement methods, automation, and knowledge-centered support to improve stability, speed, quality, and cost efficiency.
- Contribute to vendor, budget, capacity, and workforce planning; identify risks, options, and investment needs and present clear recommendations to senior leaders.
- Evaluate emerging capabilities, including AI-enabled support and HR service automation, with appropriate governance, privacy, security, and measurable business outcomes.
QualificationsTechnical and Platform Experience- Progressive experience leading production support and application maintenance for global enterprise HR technology.
- Working knowledge of Oracle EBS HR applications: configuration, security, reporting, batch processing, interfaces, and troubleshooting.
- Experience supporting SAP SuccessFactors Talent Acquisition across recruiting, candidate, requisition, offer, onboarding, and reporting processes.
- Experience overseeing ServiceNow HRSD case management, knowledge, self-service, workflows, security roles, and sensitive HR data.
- Understanding of APIs, middleware, batch jobs, MFT/SFTP, identity services, interface monitoring, logs, reconciliation, SDLC, testing, SaaS releases, security, privacy, and resilience.
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
- Minimum Years of Experience: 7+
Qualifications (Continued)Service Management, Functional and Leadership Skills- Deep knowledge of ITIL incident, problem, change, release, request, knowledge, service level, supplier, and continual improvement practices.
- Understanding of hire-to-retire and recruit-to-hire processes, with a strong customer-service mindset and empathetic communication.
- Ability to lead vendor-managed services through priorities, SLAs, quality, escalations, capacity, knowledge transfer, and improvement.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, facilitation, and executive communication skills; able to manage multiple priorities independently.
- Experience with privacy, access, audit/SOX controls, resilience, operational risk, vendor commitments, and cost efficiency.
Pay Range:The anticipated base salary range for this position is
$119,300.00 to
$196,600.00. Exact salary depends on several factors such as experience, skills, education, and budget. Salary range may vary based on geographic location. In addition to base salary, this position is eligible for participation in a highly competitive bonus program as well as participation in the share incentive plan. In addition,
In addition to base salary, this position is eligible for participation in a highly competitive bonus program with the possibility for overachievement based on performance and company results. In addition, The Estée Lauder Companies offers a variety of benefits to eligible employees, including health insurance coverage (medical, dental, and vision insurance), wellness and family support programs, life and disability insurance, retirement savings plans, paid leave programs, education-related programs, paid holidays and vacation time, and many others. Many of these benefits are subsidized or fully paid for by the company.
