Sr. manager of customer operations

The Sr. Manager of Customer Operations is the primary operational owner for Global Data Systems' customer-facing support organization, combining leadership of the Service Desk and the Network Operations Center under a single accountable role. This position is responsible for the day-to-day performance, staffing, and continuous improvement of both teams, ensuring 24x7 monitoring, consistent incident response, disciplined escalation management, and service reliability for internal and external customers across multiple locations. The successful candidate is skilled in IT management, customer service, problem solving, process improvement, and team leadership, and thrives in a very dynamic environment. The role balances people leadership, technical oversight, customer impact, and cross-team coordination with Security, Cloud, and Professional Services, with the ultimate goal of delivering high quality, consistent technical support that increases overall customer satisfaction and SLA performance.

This role also leads and owns operational process improvement end to end, is accountable for efficiency gains proven by measurable operational outcomes and drives the responsible integration of AI and automation into Service Desk and NOC workflows.

Requirements

Operational Leadership

• Own daily Service Desk and NOC operations across all shifts (day, night, weekends, holidays), ensuring consistent coverage, clean handoffs, and balanced workload.
• Supervise the day-to-day operations of a combined team of Tier-1 and Tier-2 Service Desk technicians and NOC engineers supporting multiple internal and external customers over multiple locations.
• Enforce adherence to Service Desk and NOC standard operating procedures, escalation timelines, and on-call procedures.
• Maintain staff schedules so that coverage is complete throughout Service Desk operating hours and NOC monitoring runs 24x7.
• Ensure every ticket has clear ownership, timely updates, and proper documentation throughout the ticket lifecycle and before shift handoff.

Incident and Escalation Management

• Ensure escalation in accordance with customer obligations and satisfaction metrics for P1 and P2 incidents, major outages, and customer-impacting events, leading response and coordinating with carriers, vendors, customers, and internal engineering teams.
• Create and manage escalation procedures and ensure Service Level Agreements are consistently executed.
• Ensure root cause analysis is completed for major incidents and that corrective actions are tracked to completion.
• Identify, research, resolve, and document complex technical problems, and maintain efficient communication with the customer base from problem identification through resolution.

Team Leadership and Development

• Manage, coach, and develop technicians and engineers across tiers and shifts, including night shift staff, setting clear expectations around performance, accountability, and professional growth.
• Lead recruiting, hiring, training, and continued education of Service Desk and NOC staff, and partner with leadership on onboarding, scheduling, and succession planning.
• Develop and advance the training program and onboarding process, identifying areas for improvement and pathways to advancement within GDS.
• Conduct regular performance check-ins, contribute to career pathing, and lead by example through a positive attitude and a willingness to guide and inspire others.

Process and Continuous Improvement

• Identify operational gaps and drive improvements in monitoring, alerting, ticket workflows, and shift processes.
• Build and improve standardized SOPs and runbooks for Service Desk and NOC support, keeping documentation current across both teams.
• Standardize repeatable work to reduce noise, improve first-touch resolution, and protect senior engineering capacity.
• Lead and own the process improvement roadmap for both teams, from identifying the opportunity through design, rollout, adoption, and post-implementation review, holding accountability for the result rather than the activity.
• Define, baseline, and report measurable operational outcomes for every improvement initiative, such as mean time to resolution, first-touch resolution rate, alert-to-ticket noise reduction, ticket aging, and cost per ticket, and demonstrate the efficiency gain achieved against the baseline.
• Identify, evaluate, and integrate AI and automation capabilities into Service Desk and NOC workflows, including AI-assisted triage and ticket summarization, automated alert correlation and enrichment, knowledge base and runbook generation, and self-service deflection, partnering with leadership and IT on tooling selection and rollout.
• Establish responsible usage standards for AI tools within customer operations, including data handling, human review of customer-facing output, and accuracy validation, and train staff so adoption is consistent across shifts.

Metrics, Reporting, and SLAs

• Track and report on key performance metrics such as ticket aging, SLA compliance, incident volume, and escalation trends.
• Produce and deliver reports to upper-level management covering all phases of Service Desk and NOC operations, including SLA performance.
• Use data to drive staffing decisions, tooling improvements, and process changes, and provide clear operational insights and recommendations to leadership.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with Security Operations, Cloud, and Professional Services teams to ensure a seamless customer experience across all support channels.
• Coordinate with carrier and vendor partners during outages, dispatches, and maintenance windows.
• Support leadership initiatives related to scale, automation, and operational maturity.
• Maintain flexibility for after-hours on-call support, including nights, weekends, and holidays, remotely and/or onsite at GDS offices.

Other duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities Directly supervises employees within the assigned department, including Service Desk technicians and NOC engineers across all tiers and shifts. Carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization's policies and applicable laws. Responsibilities include training employees; planning, assigning, and directing work; appraising performance; addressing complaints and resolving problems.

Minimum Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities)

• Bachelor's degree in business management or information technology, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Five or more years of experience in a Network Operations Center, IT Service/Help Desk, managed services, or similar 24x7 operations environment, including support of at least 300 endpoints.
• Three or more years of people management or team-lead experience in an IT operations role, with a proven ability to motivate, develop, and direct team members.
• Strong working knowledge of network monitoring and alerting tools, incident and escalation management, ticketing systems and ITSM workflows, and networking fundamentals including circuits, firewalls, VPNs, ISPs, and connectivity.
• Understanding of Windows operating systems including Server, Linux OS, MacOS/iOS, MS Office Suite applications, VMware, and Veeam, with demonstrated intermediate knowledge and certification (where applicable) across core GDS technologies.
• Help desk ticketing system experience is necessary; knowledge of ConnectWise and Kaseya preferred.
• Proven ability to manage high-pressure incidents and make sound operational decisions, and to multi-task in high stress situations while working in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to systematically gather information for root cause analysis, sort through complex issues seeking input from others as needed, and make timely and difficult decisions while using consensus when possible.
• Proficiency in building reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals, and the ability to effectively communicate and present information to groups of managers, clients, customers, and the public, both technical and non-technical.
• Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form, and expertise in solving practical problems where only limited standardization exists.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a managed services provider (MSP) environment.
• ITIL Foundation experience, or other relevant technical certifications.
• Familiarity with security operations and firewall/VPN troubleshooting.
• Experience building or refining SOPs, escalation models, and shift-based workflows.

Physical Demands and Work Environment

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit and talk or hear. The employee is frequently required to stand; walk; use hands to handle or feel; and reach with hands and arms. The employee must regularly lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, and color vision. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally exposed to risk of electrical shock.

Note

This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the employee incumbent in this position. Employees will be required to follow any other job-related instructions and to perform any other job-related duties requested by any person authorized to give instructions or assignments. All duties and responsibilities are essential functions and requirements and are subject to possible modification to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities. The requirements listed in this document are the minimum levels of knowledge, skills, or abilities. This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an "at will" relationship.