• Manage a team of support analysts that provides 24x7 support for multiple store systems; as well as providing direction and prioritization of work.
• Manage 2nd Level resources for optimal performance.  This will consist of resource management for incoming customer inquiries, projects, administrative work and time allotted for holidays and paid/unpaid time off.
• Partner closely with 1st Level to improve technical knowledge, quality issue management, and quality delivery of service to customers.
• Participate in the development of service level agreements and ongoing management of service level compliance.
• Participate and assist in driving the knowledge transition and management process.
• Assist in the professional and technical development of team leaders enabling them to set technical goals, monitor, mentor, coach and assist team members to deliver quality support.
• Drive escalated customer and vendor issues.
• Partner with IT business partners and project teams to prepare the support team for new product/service releases.
• Develop and enhance cooperative interdepartmental and vendor relationships and communications.
• Develop a performance measurements framework and facilitate feedback system to team members on issues such as customer service, communication, and technical skills, in order to enhance the quality of support delivered.
• Oversee methodical troubleshooting, diagnostics, research, trending analysis, documentation, and identification of root cause.
• Oversee trend Analysis for Proactive Problem Management and present information to Technical and Business teams
• Implement methodologies to improve first call resolution, manage customer perceptions, and build strong internal relationships
• Manage vendors for break fix service and auditing of monthly invoices.
• Establish, maintain and continuously improve standardized operating processes and procedures.
• Maintain current knowledge of industry trends and potential impact on the support business.
• Maintain a high level of employee morale within the team.
• Develop a customer care philosophy that ensures customer satisfaction
• Provide ownership and discipline to the change control process
• This position requires the Manager to be part of an on-call rotation and travel to the Bay Area – approximately 10%.

Qualifications

• Bachelor Degree in a technical field or equivalent work experience.
• At least 5 years of experience in a technical helpdesk environment.
• Minimum of 2 years of experience in managing/leading others.
• 3 years of experience in supporting large scale enterprise applications.
• Strong leadership and excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to lead and influence technical support engineers.
• Strong organizational skills with an ability to manage and prioritize concurrent technical support demands.
• Ability to influence technical discussions and decisions.
• Problem-solving skills to address complex technical problems and develop creative and practical recommendations with a keen attention to detail.
• Solid understanding of commercial software engineering practices and tools.
• Extensive experience in helpdesk management systems and reporting.
• Experience of Oracle and SQL Databases.
• Experience in Linux systems and script development.
• An understanding of networking and network-based software applications.
• Previous experience working within ITIL or Lean Six Sigma best practice guidelines.
• Full lifecycle software development experience. Solid knowledge of industry standards and techniques in development and testing
• Experience in working with Subversion version control and defect management systems.
• Working knowledge of object-oriented analysis and design.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Self motivated; able to work with only moderate supervision

Additional Information

Application level knowledge of;

• Operating systems: UNIX, Solaris, Enterprise Red hat Linux, Windows 98, 2000 & XP.
• Company Tools: Putty, TOAD, MQJ Explorer, Remote Desktop and WinSCP.
• Programming languages: C, C++, Java, HTML, XML.
• Scripting languages: Bash and Pearl
• Web Technologies: Servlets, JSPs, EJBs, JDBC.
• App Servers: IBM Web Sphere 5.1/6.0, Computer Associates Espresso 4.2.2/4.4.1
• Web Servers: Apache, IBM Http and Jakarta Tomcat
• Software Packages: MS Office
• Network Protocols: TCP/IP, UDP, DNS