Sr. Operations Manager, AI Agents & Knowledge

Zendesk is seeking an experienced and strategic leader to work directly with the Vice President of our AI Agents, Knowledge and Analytics products, as well as their Product, Design and Engineering leadership team, to accelerate our innovation.

As Sr. Operations Manager, you will lead efforts to ensure our Product Development team is collaborating efficiently and transparently with each other, as well as cross-functional counterparts, to remove friction and operational burdens. You will be responsible for defining and managing the operational cadences of the product development team to ensure alignment with business goals and efficient execution.

This role requires expertise in SaaS Product Development and running operational cadences for a fast-paced technology organization. The ideal candidate has experience in B2B SaaS, AI, or enterprise software development and has led initiatives to increase product quality and velocity.Key Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with product and engineering leadership to define, implement, and run the operational cadence for the Product Development team, including product reviews, roadmap planning, and OKR processes.

• Design and implement scalable workflows and communication frameworks to enable seamless cross-functional collaboration across Product, Engineering, Design, and other stakeholders.

• Establish and manage robust processes for Product Development teams to interact with Go-to-Market (GTM), Customer Experience (CX), and other customer-facing teams.

• Design and implement operational processes to ensure that customer and stakeholder questions/feedback are handled in a timely manner.

• Develop and maintain hiring playbooks, scorecards, interview frameworks, and onboarding documentation tailored for AI product and engineering roles.

• Support release planning and standardization to align product development cycles with business priorities.

• Act as a trusted operational partner to the VP, managing day-to-day staff coordination without direct people management responsibilities.

Qualifications

• Strong organizational, operational and coordination skills with ability to support senior leadership in managing teams operationally.

• Proven ability to drive process improvement, increase team productivity/engagement and deliver results in a high-complexity environment.

• Excellent communication skills and demonstrated ability to collaborate cross-functionally with Execs, Customer-facing & GTM stakeholders, recruiting, HR, product, and engineering partners.

• Data-driven with skills in tracking, analyzing, and reporting.

• Familiarity with AI products and scaling operations for AI focused products highly desirable.

• Experience in AI-driven SaaS or enterprise software highly desirable.

This individual contributor role offers a vital chance to define and execute the operational excellence and staff management support, enabling Zendesk’s AI product and engineering organizations to scale and innovate successfully.

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 [email protected] with your specific accommodation request.