Job Description
Love building Run capabilities from the ground up Zendesk is looking for a Senior Manager to lead our unified SRE and ITSM Operations teamsomeone who can set strategy, drive process maturity, and serve as the interface between Run, business stakeholders, and platform teams. This role is the cornerstone of our MVP organization, establishing core capabilities, incident coverage, and basic observability across our 70+ CIO-owned applications.
The Role
The Sr Manager, SRE & ITSM Operations will lead the centralized Run function for Zendesk's internal IT services. You will own the ITSM roadmap, stakeholder engagement, prioritization, and KPIsoverseeing Observability & Monitoring, Incident Management & Response, Reliability Engineering & Automation, Change Management, Problem Management & Process Governance, and IT Asset Management (CMDB). You will build and scale a hybrid SRE + ITSM model that balances engineering rigor with process governance.
This is a leadership role that combines strategic vision, people management, and cross-functional partnership. You will work with GES, AI & Automation, ES Product, platform owners, and domain teams to improve stability, reduce MTTR, and elevate the employee experience.
What You'll Do
- Lead the unified SRE & ITSM Operations teamset strategy, drive process maturity, and own Run outcomes.
- Own the ITSM roadmapprioritize capabilities, define SLIs/SLOs and error budgets for core applications.
- Serve as the primary interface to business stakeholders, automation teams, and platform owners.
- Establish and maintain operating cadencesCAB, PIR/RCA, problem review, observability standards, and Run portfolio review.
- Build and develop the teamObservability, Incident Response, Change Management, Problem Management, and Asset Management.
- Drive KPIs: Tier 0 monitoring coverage, MTTA/MTTR, MTBI, recurrence reduction, FCR, and provisioning automation.
- Partner with Service Desk (Shared Services) on intake, routing, and escalation taxonomy.
- Define Build vs Run boundaries, handoff contracts, and selective transfer criteria for sustaining work.
- Champion the hybrid SRE modelincident swarming, blameless postmortems, error-budget-based change evolution.
- Contribute to organizational designsquad structure, career progression, and scaling from MVP to full coverage.
What You Bring
- Required: 8+ years of experience in IT Operations, SRE, ITSM, or Service Delivery; 3+ years in a people leadership role.
- Preferred: Experience building or scaling Run/SRE/ITSM capabilities in a global, high-growth tech company.
- Strong working knowledge of ITIL and SRE principles; practical experience with hybrid SRE + ITSM models.
- Experience leading observability, incident management, change management, or problem management functions.
- Familiarity with SaaS application portfolios (Salesforce, NetSuite, CPQ, integrations) and CIO-run scope.
- Excellent strategic, communication, and stakeholder management skillsable to influence across org boundaries.
- Data-driven mindsetcomfortable with KPIs, error budgets, SLIs/SLOs, and operational reporting.
- Ability to balance governance with velocitypaved roads over bureaucracy.
- Understanding of Build vs Run boundaries, matrix operating models, and selective transfer criteria.
Nice to Have
- ITIL 4 Managing Professional or SRE/DevOps leadership experience
- Experience with Zendesk Products, Datadog, Incident.I/O, or similar tooling
- Knowledge of Agile/DevOps practices and platform engineering
- Previous experience at a SaaS company with 50+ internal applications
How We'll Measure Success
- Establishment of core Run capabilities and MVP staffing (1316 resources).
- Improvement in MTTA/MTTR, MTBI, recurrence rate, and Tier 0 monitoring coverage.
- Adoption of ITSM processes (incident, problem, change) and observability standards.
- Demonstrated stakeholder satisfaction and cross-functional partnership.
- Team engagement, retention, and career progression within the Run function.
Please note that Zendesk can only hire candidates who are physically located and plan to work from Karnataka or Maharashtra. Please refer to the location posted on the requisition for where this role is based.
Hybrid: In this role, our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection, collaboration, learning, and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.
The Intelligent Heart Of Customer Experience
Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.
Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.
As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.
Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we're proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.
Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to [Confidential Information] with your specific accommodation request.
