Manager, IT Service Desk

Description

The company develops advanced defense systems and is at an early stage, building its team to turn new ideas into working capability.

You will join early, with real ownership of the work, and your contribution will be visible to the company as it grows.

The company is looking for an experienced IT Service Desk Manager who keeps a steady head during urgent problems and combines solid technical judgment with a people-first approach. Experience with engineering or aerospace firms, DoD contractors or high-growth startups is a good fit.

You will be the day-to-day lead for frontline IT support, based at the Torrance, CA office, and you will serve both the local team and remote staff. You will manage a growing team spread across several states, direct the troubleshooting and logging of incoming issues, answer employee requests quickly and with empathy, and push to improve support processes.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate support for every end-user IT issue, covering hardware, software, networking and account access.
• Hold your team accountable for answering, diagnosing and closing service desk tickets promptly and courteously.
• Make sure each support case is recorded with its fix, and write clear entries for the internal knowledge base.
• Issue and maintain laptops, peripherals and software across a mixed estate of roughly 75% Windows and 25% Linux.
• Take an active role in incident response and in communicating during incidents.
• Travel to other sites about 5-10% of the time for onsite coordination, support or deployments.
• Spot process gaps, propose fixes and put them in place to improve the user experience and efficiency.
• Build a team that stays calm and kind during high-stress incidents, and keep morale up when things are hard.
• Set up and enforce hypercare for VIP users, key events, incident mitigations, workarounds and follow-up after problems.
• Coach and manage the technicians as the team grows across several sites and time zones.

Requirements

• 3-5+ years of experience in an IT support supervisor, lead or managerial role.
• You have worked in support for engineering firms, DoD contractors or startup-style environments.
• You are a strong teacher and trainer.
• You have set practical SLAs and metrics, tracked them, and reported results to those above you in clear summaries.
• You know device management tools such as Microsoft Intune, asset inventory tracking, basic networking, and onboarding and offboarding workflows.
• You have led a team through troubleshooting hardware, Windows and Linux, mobile devices, VPN and enterprise suites such as Office 365.
• You partner with other IT and engineering groups to find inefficiencies and push for fixes that save time.
• You communicate well and make every support interaction feel positive.
• You set priorities well and work on your own under pressure.
• You handle several tasks or escalations at once without losing track.
• Preferred: experience working under cybersecurity compliance rules such as CUI, ITAR or NIST 800-171.
• Preferred: eligibility for a security clearance.

Conditions

This is an office-based role at the Torrance, CA office.

The role may require access to classified information or restricted U.S. Government sites, systems or information, as determined by the company and/or applicable U.S. Government requirements.

If the position is designated that way, your employment may depend on obtaining and keeping the required U.S. Government security clearance or other government authorization, and on meeting any citizenship or other eligibility rules that apply. You will be told if and when these requirements apply.

The role requires access to export-controlled information, so employment, or hiring of a contractor, depends on your ability to access that information without additional export licensing from the Bureau of Industry and Security and/or the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls.

The job description does not list every duty, and duties may change at any time, with or without notice.

The company is an equal opportunity employer.

Benefits

• A benefits package is offered, and the careers page lists the details.