Sr. Support Operations Manager

I'm Allie, Head of Support at Ashby. 👋 Support at Ashby is a strategic differentiator. As we've scaled, we've built out dedicated functions to support it: a Systems Engineer keeping our tooling running, a Workforce Management practice ensuring we have the right coverage at the right times, a Quality program that keeps every interaction excellent, and a Training function that gets new hires up to speed fast. Each of these functions is strong on its own. What we're missing is someone to bring them together. That's why we're hiring our first Senior Support Operations Manager to lead the Support Operations organization: Systems, Workforce Management, Quality, and Training. You'll report directly to me.

This role isn't about running any one of these functions day to day. It's about setting the systems, processes, and standards that let them work together, coaching and developing the leaders who own them, and ensuring the systems and processes behind Support match the customer experience we want to deliver. You won't own the hands-on systems administration, forecasting, quality evaluations, or training delivery, but you'll be expected to understand that work well enough to ask sharp questions, spot patterns across functions, and have real problem-solving conversations with the leads who own it day to day. You'll also be a key partner to our Knowledge Management team, helping turn what we know into self-service and in-app experiences that reduce the need for a ticket in the first place.

If you love building operational rigor while creating an environment where team members are eager to grow, staying close enough to the work to coach from firsthand understanding, and treating efficiency and quality as two sides of the same coin, this might be the role for you.

Our team will be at our company offsite from October 5-9. Applications will remain open during that time, and we’ll begin reviewing them the week of October 12.

As the Senior Support Operations Manager, you'll own the strategy, standards, and coordination across Ashby's Support Operations functions. You'll manage through the leaders who own each function's day-to-day execution, but you'll stay close to the work by regularly reviewing QA scores, joining forecasting reviews, and understanding systems changes well enough that your coaching is specific, not just directional. Because this is a new layer of leadership and Support Operations is still being established, you'll have the authority to define how these functions coordinate, where they should be more tightly integrated, and where efficiency gains can free up capacity for higher-impact work. In your first year, you'll establish consistent processes and standards across the four functions, formalize how the functions work together, and help drive measurable improvements in efficiency or quality.

Integrating Systems, WFM, Quality, and Training

• Manage and coordinate Support Operations' four functions: Systems, Workforce Management, Quality, and Training, ensuring they operate as a cohesive organization supporting our Specialists and Support Engineers.

• Plan and implement operational policies, standards, and recurring practices that bring consistency across functions while respecting what makes each one distinct.

• Identify where functions should work more closely together (e.g., how Quality findings inform Training content, or how WFM forecasts should account for Systems changes) and drive that integration.

Managing and Developing the Leaders of Each Function

• Directly manage the leaders and individual contributors across Systems, Workforce Management, Quality, and Training, including several who are new to their roles and still establishing their own operating standards.

• Coach and develop the leaders of each function as they grow their programs, hire their teams, and establish operating standards, grounding that coaching in specific, detailed feedback.

Driving Performance and Efficiency Across Functions

• Stay close to each function's day-to-day workflows, metrics, and constraints so you can spot patterns and ensure excellence in delivery.

• Evaluate operational performance and efficiency across all four functions, using data to identify where the organization is succeeding and where opportunity remains.

• Champion efficiency gains as a core goal alongside quality, not in tension with it.

• Build the visibility leaders need to understand tradeoffs across systems reliability, coverage, quality, and training investment.

Representing Support Operations Cross-Functionally

• Act as a thought partner to Support Leadership on how strong systems and processes help Support be a strategic differentiator for Ashby.

• Represent Support Operations in cross-functional conversations with Engineering, Product, and People Ops.

• Help redefine what an exceptional customer experience looks like as the underlying team and tooling continue to scale.

Operational Leadership Experience

• Proven experience leading operational functions in a Support or Customer Experience organization, with depth in one or more disciplines and experience coordinating across multiple disciplines (e.g., systems, workforce management, quality, or training).

• Experience managing managers or leaders of distinct functions, hiring and developing teams, and building clear ownership across multiple functions.

• You stay close enough to the work to inspect quality, challenge assumptions, and coach effectively, without needing to be the primary operator for each function.

• Track record of building or scaling operational standards and processes across a growing organization.

Systems Thinking and Cross-Functional Coordination

• Strong ability to see how distinct functions interact and to design clear ways for them to work together.

• You use operational data to identify problems, make tradeoffs, and hold teams accountable to measurable outcomes.

• Comfort working in ambiguity, especially where functions are new and their processes and standards are still being defined.

Coaching Leaders and Specialists

• Skilled at coaching leaders and specialists at different stages of maturity, from those establishing a new function to those refining an existing one.

• Strong communication and facilitation skills, with the ability to align stakeholders across Systems, WFM, Quality, Training, Knowledge Management, and Support Leadership, tailoring context for different audiences.

• Genuine investment in developing people, beyond managing outputs.

Strategic Thinking and Customer Focus

• Believes Support is a strategic differentiator, not a cost center, and can articulate why.

• Passionate about efficiency and quality as complementary goals rather than competing priorities.

• Excited about self-service and in-app support as levers for a better customer experience, not just cost reduction.

• You enjoy leading through managers and functional leaders, developing them through specific feedback while staying close enough to the work to coach effectively.

• You're energized by helping establish an operating model from the ground up, bringing structure, clear ownership, and coordination to distinct disciplines that are still being built.

• You use data to make tradeoffs, hold teams accountable to outcomes, and prove that efficiency and quality can reinforce each other.

• You're excited to help build the organization through active hiring and cross-functional partnership, and to shape how customers experience Ashby.

• You want to be the primary operator or subject-matter expert in one function rather than lead through managers across several.

• You need fully mature, fully staffed functions and established processes and standards to step into.

• You're uncomfortable using data to make tradeoffs, setting standards where none exist, or operating in ambiguity.

• You see efficiency and quality as inherently in tension rather than as goals to pursue together.

Ashby builds a suite of products that helps talent leaders, recruiters, and hiring managers run their hiring process significantly better. We raised a $50M Series D in July 2025 and support nearly 5,000 customers, including Shopify, Snowflake, OpenAI, Deliveroo, and Confluent. We’re growing much faster than 100% year over year, with a team of roughly 300 people across 22+ countries. Learn more at ashbyhq.com.

We view our Support team as an extension of the product itself, one that ensures an optimal customer experience for customers ranging across all market segments. Here are a few points that should give you an idea of what it is like to work with us:

• We spend a lot of time building best-in-class products since we believe a highly differentiated product is easier to sell.

• We also spend a lot of time building a best-in-class customer experience. We aim to offer deep expertise whenever we interact with prospects and customers.

• We strongly believe that small teams with very talented people and the right work environment deliver much better performance than teams with large headcount.

We value a strong sense of ownership, principled thinking over experience, and thoughtful communication (we put a lot of effort into using the right communication channels) - we’ll get into these and other values during the hiring process. You can take a look at our Leadership Principles to get a sense of what we value in People Leaders at Ashby.

Our interview process is thorough and designed to give you enough information to assess whether Ashby is the right fit for you, while helping us evaluate technical reasoning, communication precision, and ownership.

• Intro call with Recruiting — 30 min

• Hiring Manager interview — 45 min

• Take-home assessment — 5 days to complete

• CS Leadership — 30 min

• Virtual Onsite — 105 min

  • WFM & Support Ops — 30 min

  • QA & Training — 30 min

  • Support Leaders — 30 min

  • Closing Questions — 15 min

• Founder interview — 30 min

Benefits vary by country and are shared in more detail during the process. International employees receive statutory benefits and, where available, employer-paid supplemental health coverage.

• 10-year exercise window for stock options. You shouldn’t feel pressure to purchase stock options if you leave Ashby—do it when you feel financially comfortable.

• Unlimited PTO with four weeks recommended per year. Expect “Vacation?” in our one-on-one agenda until you start taking it 😅

• Twelve weeks of fully paid family leave in the US. We plan to expand this to employees in other countries as situations arise.

• A $1,200 annual learning and professional-development budget.

• A one-time $2,000 home-office setup budget for furniture, monitors, peripherals, and ergonomic equipment, plus a company-provided laptop.

• Extended health benefits for you and your dependents (subject to availability with our Employer of Record)

• Opportunities to spend time with teammates through an annual company offsite, team offsites, local meetups, and virtual events.

Ashby provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. We are committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce and welcome people from all backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and abilities.

Ashby is committed to a fair and transparent hiring process. We confirm that this advertisement is for an active, existing vacancy within our organization. Please be advised that we may use artificial intelligence-driven tools to assist our recruitment team in screening, assessing, and selecting candidates for this position.