Technical Operations Manager

Role Overview

Our Worker Operations department is hiring a highly autonomous and results-oriented Technical Operations Manager to lead the team responsible for our core Zendesk ecosystem and its associated technical integrations. This is a critical leadership role requiring deep Zendesk expertise combined with strong technical literacy and the ability to drive performance in a 100% remote, fast-paced, dynamic environment.

You will own the operational health, performance, and reliability of our Zendesk platform and its interconnected systems (including AWS Connect telephony, custom applications hosted on AWS, and various integrations). You will manage a globally-distributed hybrid team of Zendesk Administrators and technical developers, translating business requirements into robust, scalable, and high-quality technical solutions. In a culture that values autonomy and impact, you will be empowered to set standards, drive improvements, and build a best-in-class operational technology function centered around our core support CRM.

Primary Responsibilities

• Own the Zendesk Ecosystem: Lead the administration, configuration, ongoing optimization, and operational roadmap of our Zendesk instance.
• Manage Global Technical Team: Lead, mentor, and manage performance for a team comprising Zendesk Administrators and developers responsible for custom applications and integrations. Foster a culture of high performance, quality, and operational excellence.
• Oversee Integrations Custom Apps: Provide strong oversight for vendor integrations (e.g. AWS telephony), custom applications hosted on AWS (monitoring deployment, reliability, bug rates), and other integrations (e.g., Zapier, microservices), ensuring they function reliably and securely within the Zendesk ecosystem.
• Translate Business Needs: Partner closely with stakeholders across Worker Operations, Support, and other teams to deeply understand business requirements, challenge assumptions, define clear technical specifications, and prioritize initiatives.
• Drive Performance Reliability: Establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) for system uptime, bug resolution times, routing accuracy, custom application reliability, and development lifecycle efficiency. Drive continuous improvement initiatives.
• Ensure Quality Speed: Implement and manage processes for change management, incident management, quality assurance, and efficient deployment cycles for both Zendesk configurations and custom development work.
• Set Standards Operate Autonomously: Define operational standards, best practices, and roadmaps for the Tech Ops function within a highly autonomous environment. Demonstrate toughness and resilience in driving priorities and enforcing standards.
• Vendor Management: Oversee relationships with key technology vendors (Zendesk, etc.).

Top Traits Required to be Successful in Role

1. Toughness Resilience: Ability to make decisive calls, enforce standards, push back respectfully, and maintain focus under pressure in a dynamic culture.
2. Problem-Solving Autonomy: Exceptional ability to troubleshoot complex technical issues, translate ambiguous business needs into technical solutions, and operate effectively with a high degree of autonomy in a fast-paced environment.
3. Communication Stakeholder Management: Excellent communication skills with the ability to articulate technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences, demand clarity in requirements, and manage stakeholder expectations effectively.

Technical Literacy:

• Demonstrable understanding of cloud hosting and deployment fundamentals (AWS preferred), monitoring principles (e.g., Cloudwatch), APIs, and integration tools (e.g., Zapier). You don't need to be the hands-on expert in these, but must be able to provide effective oversight.
• Extreme Accountability: Ruthless focus on results, accountability.
• Very low tolerance for poor work or blurry thinking.
• Strong bias for driving outcomes quickly.