At Element Biosciences, we are passionate about our mission to empower the scientific community with more freedom and flexibility to accelerate our collective impact on humanity. We have built a highly efficient product-driven organization where employees can learn, grow, and thrive in a challenging but encouraging environment. We are committed to scientific integrity, collegiality, honesty, objectivity, and openness.
We are seeking a Senior Manager, Technical Support to lead a growing team of Technical Support Engineers and Applications Scientists in delivering world-class technical support to our expanding customer base and regional distribution partners. This role will oversee daily support operations, drive process excellence, and partner cross-functionally across Commercial, Operations, and R&D to ensure an exceptional customer experience. The ideal candidate brings strong technical acumen, proven leadership in customer-facing support organizations, and the ability to scale team operations in a dynamic, high-growth environment. This position will report to our Senior Director, Global Service & Support and is an on-site position out of our San Diego headquarters.
If you possess the following and want to make a meaningful impact, we invite you to explore this role.
Essential Functions and Responsibilities:
- Directly manage and mentor a team of 6+ Technical Support Engineers/Applications Scientists providing frontline support to customers and distribution partners globally
- Oversee daily Technical Support operations including triage, troubleshooting, escalations, and coordination with internal and external support teams
- Identify development opportunities, create training plans, and support career growth and technical excellence within the team
- Foster a collaborative, customer-first culture focused on ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement
- Set team goals and KPIs aligned with global service objectives and monitor performance to ensure consistent delivery of high-quality customer experiences
- Measure emerging field trends, identify actionable insights, and coordinate issue resolution
- Coordinate escalation response for complex customer or distributor issues, ensuring timely resolution and communication
- Partner with Field Service, Field Applications, Commercial Service, and Product Support teams to ensure seamless end-to-end issue resolution across workflows
- Define, track, and report on key operational metrics such as response time, resolution time, and complaint rate
- Manage workload distribution and resource planning to support a growing install base and expanding product portfolio
- Collaborate with Commercial and Operations teams to align technical support strategies with broader customer success and retention goals
- Lead initiatives to enhance technical support processes, tools, and systems to improve efficiency and customer outcomes
- Champion documentation excellence and knowledge management across customer and distributor channels
- Partner with R&D and Product Quality to provide structured feedback on product performance and usability
- Support the design and implementation of scalable systems to handle increasing case volume, complexity, and regional diversity
- Drive improvement of key service KPIs such as Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
- Partner closely with regional Field Service and Applications teams, as well as Global Service and R&D, to ensure alignment on issue resolution, escalations, and field learnings
- Coordinate and contribute to the creation of customer-facing technical collateral, product documentation, and training materials for product extensions and new product introductions
- Support pre-sales technical consultations and post-sales technical engagements to strengthen customer relationships
- Ensure accurate and timely case documentation using CRM systems (e.g., SFDC)
- Manage departmental budgets, including staffing and support tool costs, within defined P&L parameters
- Ensure compliance with internal quality systems (ISO13485) and service documentation standards
Education and Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Bioengineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related field (required)
- Minimum 8 years of experience in customer or product support within biotech, life sciences, or instrumentation industries
- Minimum 3 years of direct people management experience leading technical teams or support engineers/scientists
- Proven experience supporting complex instrumentation systems incorporating optics, microfluidics, and electromechanical components
- Hands-on familiarity with NGS technologies, including library preparation, sequencing, and data analysis, preferred
- Demonstrated ability to interpret large instrument log files, perform root-cause analysis, and provide actionable recommendations
- Experience managing CRM-based service operations (preferably SFDC) and leveraging analytics to drive improvement
- Experience working in a global and matrixed support environment a plus
- Strong communication, coaching, and change management skills
Physical Requirements:
- Ability to lift up to 20 pounds
- Must be flexible in working hours as this position may require customer support during non-regular business hours
Location:
- San Diego, CA (on-site)
Travel:
- Approximately 5-10% travel both domestic and international
Job Type:
- Full-time, Exempt
Base Compensation Pay Range:
- $145,000 - $189,000
In addition to base compensation noted above, you will be eligible for stock options, discretionary annual bonus, no cost health insurance plans, 401k with company match, and flexible paid time off.
Please note: Base compensation will depend on multiple factors, including geographic location, qualifications, and experience.
We foster an environment such that all people are afforded the freedom to pursue their passions without regard to race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, gender (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, veteran status or any other characteristics protected by law.
Top Skills
What We Do
Element Biosciences is a multi-disciplinary startup focused on innovating genetic analysis tools for the research and diagnostic markets. We are developing a modular and high-performing DNA sequencing platform that will deliver high-quality data, increase workflow flexibility, and make next-generation sequencing technology more accessible. Our proprietary approach to improving the signal-to-noise ratio allows us to provide groundbreaking innovations in surface chemistry, instrumentation, and biochemistry to drastically decrease run costs and capital costs while delivering high sequencing data quality.
