[Hiring] Desktop Operations Lead @Datavant

Role Description

The Desktop Operations (DTO) Lead is a senior, hands-on leader who runs the daily operations of our Desktop Operations team. As the main escalation point for urgent and high-impact issues, you will own the quality and consistency of the team's work, help drive process improvement, and represent the team in specific meetings and projects. Our team includes both fully remote staff and members based in our physical offices, so you will also coordinate onsite project work and office-related improvements alongside the team's remote work.

This is a working-lead role rather than a formal people-management position. You will coach team members, triage and direct work, and propose operational and business decisions. Formal people-management responsibilities such as 1:1s, performance reviews, compensation, and hiring or termination decisions stay with the Desktop Operations Manager, who you will advise and support.

We hold this team to a higher standard than a typical L1 support team. Our technicians are autonomous, proactive, and accountable for their own work, which includes raising capacity concerns early and partnering with each other to redistribute work when someone needs help. As Lead, you will help hold that bar by monitoring team performance and surfacing where it is or isn't being met.

What You'll Do

• Oversight and stepping in on exceptions, not doing everything yourself.
• Be the main point of contact for escalations from other leaders, teams, and stakeholders.
• Step in on situations that go beyond a single technician's scope.
• Do a couple of quick queue sweeps a day as a safety net.
• Own coordination of major desktop and endpoint incidents through resolution.
• Spot recurring escalation themes and feed them into longer-term fixes.

Quality, Standards, and Metrics

• Spot-check completed tickets for quality and consistency with team standards.
• Keep an eye on documentation.
• Track team KPIs and SLAs such as resolution time, reopen rate, CSAT, backlog, and ticket aging.
• Watch performance against our higher-than-L1 bar of autonomy, proactivity, and accountability.
• Give the Manager a regular metrics summary that calls out trends and root causes.

Process and Continuous Improvement

• Turn recurring problems into permanent fixes.
• Propose automation and workflow improvements that reduce ticket volume and manual effort.
• Lead a project to build a proper ticket priority and impact framework.

Onsite and Physical Office Operations

• Be the advisory and oversight point for office-related escalations and improvements.
• Coordinate office project work the Manager delegates.
• Stay looped in on AV and vendor activity.
• Keep an eye on office hardware and asset needs.
• Keep the Manager informed of anything affecting a whole office.

Coaching and Team Development

• Offer technical mentorship and coaching in the moment.
• Notice skill gaps, training needs, and workload imbalances.

Stakeholder and Cross-Team Representation

• Represent Desktop Operations in specific projects or cross-team meetings.
• Be a day-to-day point of contact for partner teams on the work you are handling.

How the Role Works

You will decide independently on:

• Escalation routing and triage decisions.
• In-the-moment coaching and quality feedback to team members.
• Day-to-day operational direction within established standards.
• Office-manager escalations about onsite work.

You will recommend, with the Manager approving:

• Process, workflow, and SOP changes.
• Office-related process changes and improvements.
• Tooling purchases or changes that involve spend.
• Policy changes or anything that affects other teams.

What You'll Bring

• At least 5 years of progressive, hands-on desktop support or desktop engineering experience.
• A track record of informal leadership.
• Strong incident management and troubleshooting skills under pressure.
• A solid grounding in desktop engineering.
• Familiarity with IAM principles and SSO.
• Hands-on experience with endpoint and MDM tooling across Windows and Mac.
• Working knowledge of ITSM and ITIL processes and tooling.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Good organizational skills and sound judgment.
• Experience supporting a distributed workforce.

Nice to Have

• ITIL foundation or familiarity with incident, problem, and change management.
• Experience building or maintaining SOPs, runbooks, and operational documentation.
• Familiarity with reporting and metrics tooling and dashboards.

What Success Looks Like

• Escalations are handled quickly and consistently.
• Team metrics and quality are visible and trending in the right direction.
• Recurring issues steadily decline as permanent fixes take hold.
• The team's work stays consistent and in line with standards.
• Onsite and remote members work to the same standards.
• The team keeps moving toward a more proactive, business-enabling state.