Helpdesk specialist - mid-level

Customer Intake, Triage and Queue Management

• Monitor and respond to requests received through ServiceNow queues, shared email, Microsoft Teams chat, telephone, virtual support sessions, and approved in-person channels.
• Gather customer contact information and relevant issue details; capture the request accurately in ServiceNow; determine impact, urgency, severity, and the appropriate support tier.
• Categorize, prioritize, assign, color-code or otherwise mark, track, and update tickets using established taxonomy, workflows, quality standards, and service procedures.
• Maintain clear ticket ownership, status, troubleshooting history, customer communications, dependencies, next actions, escalation paths, and closure documentation.
• Prioritize time-sensitive requests and provide timely acknowledgment and status updates consistent with applicable service-level expectations.

Tier 0, Tier 1 and Tier 2 Support

• Provide Tier 0 support by directing customers to approved training materials, knowledge articles, recordings, guides, demonstrations, FAQs, and other self-service resources.
• Provide Tier 1 support for account creation, study group registration, study and data access, initial tool access, provisioning and software-installation request intake, connectivity and login troubleshooting, and getting-started guidance.
• Provide Tier 2 support, within approved tool-specific boundaries, for issues not resolved at Tier 0 or Tier 1, including advanced troubleshooting, user coaching, analytical-tool guidance, and coordination with analysts or project teams.
• Use phone, email, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, screen sharing, virtual sessions, and periodic desk-side or onsite assistance to guide users and resolve issues.
• Provide general triage for FDA tools or services and route requests to the appropriate help desk, IT Call Center, project team, or support organization.

Escalation and Issue Coordination

• Document Tier 3 issues completely in ServiceNow and assign or route them to the responsible FDA, application, development, infrastructure, licensing, provisioning, or project support group.
• Report suspected system bugs in ServiceNow and, when required by the receiving development team, document and coordinate the issue in Jira.
• Track escalated issues, external dependencies, pause periods, customer actions, Government actions, and resolution progress through closure.
• Coordinate with technical SMEs and project teams while maintaining customer communication and avoiding unsupported scientific, regulatory, or policy determinations.
• Participate in daily analyst check-ins and weekly queue reviews to address complex requests, aging tickets, lessons learned, roadblocks, and next steps.

Customer Enablement and Communications

• Guide users through onboarding to FDA applications, services, training resources, and support channels.
• Provide clear, patient, accurate, and customer-focused assistance to reviewers with varying levels of technical experience.
• Prepare or distribute approved communications regarding outages, maintenance, service changes, new features, training, and operational updates.
• Support customer surveys, feedback collection, Microsoft Forms, SurveyMonkey activities, and follow-up communications as assigned.
• Promote user self-sufficiency while recognizing when direct analyst, project-team, or technical support is required.

Knowledge Management and Operational Documentation

• Create, maintain, and update SOPs, triage workflows, production support plans, knowledge articles, user guides, quick-reference guides, response templates, contact lists, escalation procedures, and tool-specific support materials.
• Maintain knowledge resources in SharePoint and OneNote and participate in quarterly documentation reviews and updates.
• Capture recurring questions, proven resolutions, support gaps, and lessons learned for incorporation into self-service and analyst resources.
• Support knowledge transfer, shadowing, cross-training, and onboarding of new analysts to preserve operational continuity.
• Apply established quality-control checks so customer-facing content is accurate, clear, accessible, and includes working links.

Service-Level and Severity Expectations

Dependency Control

When resolution depends on customer information, Government action, Tier 3 support, licensing, provisioning, system recovery, or another external dependency, document the dependency and applicable pause period in ServiceNow and continue coordination through closure.

Requirements

Required Qualifications

Technical Skills

• ServiceNow or an equivalent enterprise ticket-management platform.
• Microsoft 365, including Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, OneNote, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Virtual collaboration and remote-support tools, including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and screen sharing.
• Knowledge repositories, ticket taxonomies, triage workflows, escalation procedures, and customer-support best practices.
• Basic reporting and data-quality skills; familiarity with Power BI, Microsoft Forms, SurveyMonkey, Power Automate, or Jira is desirable.
• Ability to learn specialized scientific computing tools, data environments, reviewer workflows, training resources, and tool-specific support boundaries.

Preferred Qualifications

• FDA, NIH, HHS, or other Federal health agency experience.
• Experience supporting scientific, clinical, analytical, regulatory-review, or similarly specialized applications and user communities.
• Working knowledge of ITIL incident, request, escalation, knowledge, and continual-improvement practices.
• Experience supporting account provisioning, application access, study or data access, analytical tools, or regulated data environments.
• Familiarity with Section 508/WCAG accessibility, Federal records management, and handling of sensitive Government information.
• Experience supporting new-service onboarding, user training, surveys, customer communications, or workflow automation.