Service Operations Manager in Sarasota, Florida at Thrive

Position Overview

The Service Operations Manager is responsible for leading, developing, and scaling high-performing engineering support teams to deliver consistently exceptional customer experience. In partnership with the Director, Managed Services, this role drives operational excellence, engineers’ professional growth, and strong client relationships that reinforce long-term customer success. This leader acts as the operational owner for day-to-day service performance across assigned accounts, strengthening the technical execution of engineering teams while ensuring services are delivered with predictability, quality and a proactive mindset.

Core Responsibilities

1. Engineering Team Leadership & Growth

· Lead and coach engineering teams to ensure technical excellence and accountability.

· Build scalable team structures and workflows to support growth and meet changing customer needs.

· Promote a culture of learning and collaboration for ongoing skill development.

· Review performance metrics and guide engineers on technical and professional improvement.

2. Operational Excellence & Service Delivery Execution

· Deliver services that meet or exceed SLAs, KPIs, and customer expectations.

· Enforce standardised processes, quality documentation, effective communication, and escalation protocols.

· Track operations, identify risks early, and resolve issues proactively.

· Assist in capacity planning, workload distribution, and resource allocation for operational goals.

3. Strategic Client Relationship Management

· Serve as the main operational contact for assigned clients, building transparent and responsive relationships.

· Align engineering support with client business needs and goals.

· Collaborate with Account Management and Project Delivery for unified service.

· Join customer reviews, service discussions, and roadmap planning to support the partnership.

4. Customer Success Ownership

· Regularly assess customer experience and drive actions to boost satisfaction, reliability, and value.

· Turn customer feedback into practical improvements for engineering and service teams.

· Support renewal readiness through effective service delivery and by spotting upsell or expansion opportunities linked to customer goals.

5. Data Driven Performance Management

· Track and respond to service KPIs like SLA attainment, response/resolution times, backlog status, and customer sentiment.

· Use data to inform decisions, enhance team performance, and report trends to leadership and clients.

· Regularly manage metrics, service health, and operational reports.

6. Collaboration & Cross Functional Alignment

· Collaborate with Engineering, Project Delivery, Account Management, and Central Services to ensure seamless service delivery and effective knowledge sharing.

· Support the onboarding process for new customers and technologies by facilitating coordination and communication among teams.

· Work with leadership to implement initiatives that improve efficiency, quality, and scalability.

7. Resource & Budget Management

· Maintain team staffing plans and budget alignment to support business growth, SLA commitments, and service quality requirements.

· Participate in hiring, onboarding, and workforce planning to ensure a strong, scalable engineering support bench.

Qualifications

· Proven experience leading engineering or technical support teams within a managed services or enterprise IT environment, with a strong focus on operational execution and customer outcomes.

· Solid understanding of core IT operations concepts such as incident, request, change, and problem management, as well as how these functions integrate within a global service delivery model.

· Demonstrated ability to develop, mentor, and grow engineering teams, fostering a culture of accountability, learning, and high performance.

· Experience supporting complex customer environments that require adherence to strict SLAs, regulatory controls, and high-availability service expectations.

· Ability to analyze operational data, identify trends, and drive improvements using metrics-based decision making.

· Strong communication skills with the ability to translate technical and operational details into clear, actionable information for both engineers and client stakeholders.

· Proven success in building and maintaining trusted client relationships, including managing expectations, communicating service performance, and advocating for customer needs internally.

· Demonstrated effectiveness in collaborating cross-functionally with Project Delivery, Account Management, Engineering, and other operational teams.

· Ability to balance hands-on operational oversight with forward-thinking process improvement and scalability initiatives.

· Experience managing remote and distributed teams across multiple geographies or time zones.

· ITIL Foundation certification or practical ITIL experience strongly preferred.

· Strong organizational, problem-solving, and prioritization skills in a fast-paced, rapidly evolving environment.

· Comfortable working outside standard business hours when required (major incidents, escalations, or on-call rotation).