Lead IT Support Specialist

Title: Lead IT Support Specialist

Location: Austin, TX

Reporting to: Sr. Manager, IT Operations

About Hippo:

Our mission is to deliver intuitive and proactive protection for homeowners, combining the power of technology with a human touch.

Hippo built the world’s first home protection platform. We believe that insurance should protect your home and the things you treasure with policies designed for modern lives and proactive protection that helps you care for your home. Our aim is to help you avoid issues before they become costly problems because the best claims experience is the one you don’t have. Simply put, Hippo exists to protect the joy of homeownership.

About you

You will be a customer service and support evangelist, leading an Austin support team while also assisting our customers via in person walkup, support tickets, email, and chat. You will work closely with the Senior Manager of IT to drive team direction and make continuous improvements to our internal tools, documentation, and processes that directly impact the business.

You love building relationships with customers, business partners, and IT team members alike. You have an extensive background in leading projects and teams, utilizing metrics to drive change, and are passionate about providing the best customer service experience possible. You are also passionate about mentorship and providing direct constructive feedback for continued development.

Work environment:

• Hybrid - Must work from Hippo office for 4 days per week.

Responsibilities

• Lead team direction and priorities across multiple offices
• Define and improve current policies and procedures
• Create comprehensive policy and process documentation for both IT staff and Hippo employees
• Manage team performance through Service Level Objectives, ensuring commitments to Hippo are met and exceeded
• Lead cross-functional projects as a key stakeholder, highlighting and championing company impact including user experience, security, infrastructure, and others
• Translate project requirements into actionable objectives and deadlines for IT Support staff
• Identify gaps in current technology, systems, and operations, and engineer scalable solutions
• Provide technical and policy escalation support

Minimum Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience in a modern IT Support environment
• 2+ years of experience managing/leading projects
• 1+ year(s) of people management or team leadership experience
• Extensive technical knowledge of recent mobile and desktop operating systems (strong Windows experience preferred).
• Experience with video conferencing solutions and support
• Passion for continuous improvement, scalability, and the user experience

Preferred Qualifications:

• Subject matter expert in one or more modern enterprise tools
• Experience managing vendor and cross-team relationships
• Deep understanding of support ticket management, tracking metrics and trends, and defining/enforcing best practices
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to interact with key stakeholders in partner teams and company leadership
• Strong attention to detail and a passion for correctness
• Experience using a modern MDM to solve complex support needs
• Experience building scalable enterprise solutions

Benefits and Perks:

Hippo treats its team members with the same level of dedication and care as we do our customers, which is why we’re fortunate to provide all of our Hippos with:

• Healthy Hippos Benefits – Multiple medical plans to choose from and 100% employer covered dental & vision plans for our team members and their families. We also offer a 401(k) retirement plan, short & long-term disability, employer-paid life insurance, Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) for health and dependent care, and an Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Equity - This position is eligible for equity compensation 
• Training and Career Growth – Training and internal career growth opportunities
• Flexible Time Off - You know when and how you should recharge
• Little Hippos Program - We offer 12 weeks of parental leave for primary and secondary caregivers

Hippo is an equal opportunity employer, and we are committed to building a team culture that celebrates diversity and inclusion.

Hippo’s applicants are considered solely based on their qualifications, without regard to an applicant’s disability or need for accommodation. Any Hippo applicant who requires reasonable accommodations during the application process should contact the Hippo’s People Team to make the need for an accommodation known.