IT Service Desk & SLA Operations Manager

Job description

The IT Service Desk & SLA Operations Manager is responsible for overseeing the end-to-end lifecycle of all IT support tickets, from initial intake through resolution and closure. This role demands unrelenting ownership: you will follow every ticket on its entire journey to the end-of-the-earth to achieve resolution in a timely and effective manner. Driven by a "Simple Sets You Free" mindset, this role actively strips away bureaucratic friction, eliminates operational waste, and continuously optimizes IT service management processes to maximize efficiency, speed up ticket resolution, and boost customer satisfaction. ### In This Role, You Will... End-to-End Ticket Ownership & Lifecycle Management - Relentless Resolution Ownership: Personally track and follow tickets on their entire journey to the end-of-the-earth, taking total responsibility until issues are thoroughly, accurately, and effectively resolved. - Queue Administration & Triage: Monitor, triage, and assign incoming incidents, service requests, and problem tickets across multi-tiered support teams with speed and accuracy. ● Closure & Quality Control: Validate that all tickets are properly documented, root causes are identified, and end-users confirm resolution before ticket closure. - Escalation Management: Identify aging, stuck, or high-priority (P1/P2) tickets and proactively cross organizational boundaries to drive action and prevent SLA breaches. Process Optimization & Friction Elimination ("Simple Sets You Free") - Bottleneck Identification: Continuously audit ticket lifecycles, intake workflows, and escalation paths to pinpoint bottlenecks, redundant approvals, or process inefficiencies that delay issue reporting and resolution. - Streamlined Workflows: Design and implement intuitive, simplified ticketing processes and self-service channels that make it effortless for users to report issues and for technicians to resolve them. - Root-Cause Process Fixing: Collaborate across IT and business departments to re-engineer flawed processes, remove unnecessary handoffs, and eliminate administrative bloat slowing down resolution times. - Automation & Lean Operations: Champion lean service desk practices by eliminating obsolete procedures, automating routine tasks, and establishing straightforward, zero-friction standards across all support tiers. SLA & Metric Tracking - SLA Monitoring: Enforce and monitor compliance against core SLAs (First Response Time, Mean Time to Resolution [MTTR], First Contact Resolution [FCR], and Customer Satisfaction [CSAT]). - Reporting & Dashboards: Design, build, and maintain real-time operational dashboards and weekly/monthly executive report packs using ITSM tools (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, Zendesk). - Trend Analysis: Analyze incident data to detect recurring technical issues, capacity bottlenecks, or process failures, feeding insights directly into Problem Management. Process Governance & Continuous Improvement - ITIL & Lean Governance: Standardize and enforce streamlined incident management processes, simplified escalation pathways, and consistent ticket categorization/tagging. - Vendor & Cross-Team Coordination: Hold internal technical teams and external IT vendors accountable to contractual response and resolution targets while streamlining joint operational workflows. - Customer Feedback: Manage the CSAT survey process, follow up on negative feedback, and implement actionable improvement plans based on direct user input. ### Qualifications - 3–5+ years in IT Service Management (ITSM), IT Operations, or Service Desk leadership roles with demonstrated experience in end-to-end ticket management and lean process optimization. - Unwavering ownership mentality—willing to follow a ticket to the end-of-the-earth to see it resolved. - Strong lean operational mindset focused on process simplification and waste reduction. - Advanced proficiency in ITSM platforms (ServiceNow, Jira Service Desk, BMC Helix, Freshservice, etc.). - Deep expertise in analytics/BI platforms (Power BI, Tableau, Excel/Google Sheets advanced reporting). ### Bonus Qualifications - ITIL v3/v4 Foundation certification - Excellent written/verbal communication - Strong analytical problem-solving - Proven ability to simplify complex technical workflows under tight SLA timelines