Application Specialist - PHD

Location: Houston, Texas, United States Shell Oil Products US (SOP US) is a leader in the marketing of fuels, lubricants, coolants, services and solutions to consumer and business-to-business customers in automotive commercial and industrial sectors. SOP US also operates refineries and a pipeline and terminal system as well as more than 13,000 Shell-branded gas stations.

With a presence in 49 states and a 10.1 percent brand share according to NPD as of December 2005, Shell continues to be the number one selling brand in America, while Shell V-Power remains America's best selling premium grade gasoline.

Shell Oil Products US. is currently seeking a Application Specialist - PHD for its Houston, TX location.

Responsibilities:
In this position, you will be responsible for owning the design and the functional integrity of the PHD application.  You will be responsible for the resolution of escalated urgent/complex issues to ensure business continuity. This will include coordinating coding, testing, and promotion to the production environment for all changes to the application.  You will also be responsible for managing appropriate relationships with all stakeholders as well as serving as a liaison to the functional support groups responsible for PHD.

Key Accountabilities Include:
- Working on severity 1 & 2 incidents for a specific application functional area for a defined set of critical business applications
- Performing application design for discretionary work for enhancement requests including application functionality, data structures as it relates to the application and application security
- Ensuring work done is clearly identified as run and maintain or approved discretionary
- Ensuring discretionary work completes according to business requirements
- Performing solution quality management and sign-off for the fixes and enhancements
- Providing consultation to End-User Support/Application Support Desk staff and Application Functional Support on ticket routing and priority
- Interfacing with delivery groups to ensure complex problems are being worked appropriately
- Acting as liaison with systems development staff (offshore) or software suppliers on the development of system enhancements to overcome known problems or further fulfill user requirements
- Consulting on impact of changes on the current application functionality
- Challenging business requirements/change requests and make recommendations based on their impact to the system architecture
- Arranging, preparing and taking part in user meetings and presents issues and solutions both orally and in writing
- Interfacing with project teams in design of application changes
- Submitting information into knowledge system (as and when available)
- Working with other specialists and Application Functional Support to identify opportunities for continuous improvement
- Assisting in defining test plans and criteria, perform evaluation of test results and involved in integration testing
- Coordinating and ensuring user acceptance testing
- Taking ownership of end-user training requirements and plans
- Delivering against SLA Commitments
- Maintaining appropriate relationships with key business stakeholders while still being able to constructively challenge
- Being able to deliver against SLA commitments through virtual teams and influencing as opposed to direct control
- Ensuring compliance with the controls as appropriate for the applications portfolio 

Requirements:
To be considered for this position, you must possess a Bachelor?s Degree (or higher) and have approximately 6 or more years experience in development andor support of software.

Additional Requirements:
- Excellent knowledge of OP?s business work processes
- Knowledge of Manufacturing Business processes is highly desirable
- Familiarity of environment of process control network at the sites is highly desirable
- Knowledge of the ESP suite of tools is desirable
- Proven abilities to provide leadership, mentoring and guidance to less experienced teammates
- Excellent problem analysis skills
- Strong coordination and consulting skills
- Team player
- Business focused
- Strong learning attitude
- Excellent communication, coaching and interpersonal skills
- Strong influencing / negotiation skills
- Ability to deal with conflict and ambiguity effectively
- Ability to handle concurrent tasks with appropriate priority
- Strong process orientation and process management skills
- Proven ability to work with high degree of independence and self direction

In addition to the tasks outlined in this job description, you may be assigned other responsibilities as needed.  The Shell Group of companies offers an outstanding benefits package.  In order to be considered for this position, you must complete an online candidate profile.  No phone inquiries will be accepted.

Shell Companies in the U.S. are equal opportunity employers.

Application Deadline: Sunday, September 10, 2006