Senior Manager, IT Service Desk

Position Overview

The Senior Manager, IT Service Desk owns end-to-end delivery of IT support services across the organization from ticket intake through resolution, and is accountable for the people, processes, and partner relationships that keep employees and lab operations productive. This role blends hands-on service management with strategic planning: designing coverage models, managing SLAs, overseeing an MSP relationship, and driving self-service adoption, while also owning device lifecycle management and specialized support for lab and scientific systems.

This is a working manager role. You'll set strategy and represent the service desk to stakeholders, while staying close enough to daily operations to catch quality issues, unblock your team, and support escalations when needed.

Responsibilities

Service Desk Delivery Monitoring and Management

• Lead a growing internal service desk team and a managed service provider (MSP) to deliver end-to-end incident and request management across all IT services, from ticket intake through closure.
• Hire, coach, and develop the team; set goals, assign work, manage performance, and balance workload between internal staff and the MSP.
• Design, document, and continuously improve service desk processes ensuring consistent execution by internal staff and MSP resources.
• Define service metrics and KPIs (e.g., SLA attainment, MTTR, MTTF, first-contact resolution, backlog aging, CSAT) and own the dashboards and leadership summaries used to communicate performance.
• Lead the design and delivery of self-service capabilities, including knowledge base content standards, catalog offerings, and report on ticket deflection and knowledge usage.
• Define requirements for ServiceNow/ITSM workflow, automation, and reporting enhancements that improve service desk delivery and measurement.
• Support MSP partnership success through defining scope and service levels, own runbooks and training, conduct ticket quality audits, and lead monthly/quarterly performance and SLA reviews with remediation plans.

Onboarding, Offboarding, and Employee Lifecycle Support

• Design and manage the onboarding process for account and hardware provisioning, coordinating team and MSP delivery against defined lead times, and partner with HR on new employee onboarding plans.
• Own the offboarding process (device retrieval, access disablement, data preservation/handoff per HR and Legal requirements, and license reclamation) and report on completion timeliness and compliance.
• Manage the process for transfers, role changes, and contractor/vendor accounts, including periodic reconciliation against HR records and reporting of exceptions.

Physical Device Lifecycle Management (partnering with Endpoint Engineering on management tooling)

• Design and manage the full hardware lifecycle process (acquire, receive, inventory, tag, provision, repair, refresh, retire, dispose), with execution delivered by the team and MSP.
• Govern asset record accuracy in ServiceNow; define the reconciliation cadence against physical inventory and CMDB data and report on accuracy and variances.
• Maintain the standard hardware catalog and refresh cycle; set and monitor spare and hot-swap stock levels per site.
• Own secure disposal and data sanitization processes, including certificates of destruction, e-waste vendor management, and audit-ready documentation.
• Manage shipping and logistics processes for remote and field personnel, including return kits, and track fulfillment and return rates.

Lab and Scientific Systems Support

• Manage lab system device lifecycle processes (implement, maintain, retire) in partnership with Endpoint Engineering.
• Define priority and response targets for lab incidents and requests, oversee team and MSP delivery against them, and report on lab support performance.
• Coordinate with instrument vendors and field service engineers on scheduled maintenance, software upgrades, and validation constraints; maintain the associated schedules and service records.
• Establish and monitor support practices for data integrity on instrument-attached workstations, including controlled access, backup verification, and time synchronization.
• Partner with R&D on support planning and service readiness for new instruments during lab build-out and capital purchases.

Stakeholder Representation and Service Improvement

• Own the service improvement roadmap, using metrics, trend analysis, and customer feedback to prioritize ServiceNow workflow, automation, and process improvements.
• Champion the voice of the customer: measure satisfaction and feedback themes, maintain a walk-up/office-hours presence, and lead periodic service reviews with business functions backed by performance reporting.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in IT support/service desk roles, including 3+ years in a leadership or team management capacity.
• Demonstrated experience managing SLAs, KPIs, and service reporting (e.g., MTTR, MTTF, CSAT).
• Experience managing or closely partnering with an MSP or outsourced support model.
• Hands-on experience with ServiceNow or a comparable ITSM platform.
• Experience with IT asset/inventory management and hardware lifecycle processes.

Knowledge and Skills

• Strong communication skills, with experience presenting to non-technical business stakeholders and senior leadership.
• Experience supporting lab, scientific, or instrument-connected systems (e.g., in biotech, pharma, or R&D environments) preferred.
• Familiarity with data integrity and validation requirements for regulated or research environments preferred.
• ITIL Foundation certification or equivalent process framework experience is desirable.

Pay and benefits

Washington State Pay Range $162,000—$193,562 USD