Description
At Podium, we bring AI Employees to local businesses that turn every conversation into revenue. Trusted by 60,000+ businesses across Auto, Home Services, and Aesthetics, Podium captures and converts leads 24/7, driving both new business and repeat customers.
As Manager, Support & Operations, you’ll own how support work flows across our local and offshore teams, and directly lead our Product Support Specialists in the Philippines and Pakistan from your base in Melbourne. Your teams answer how-to questions and troubleshoot customer inquiries so businesses can stay focused on growing.
This is a senior, hands-on role that combines people leadership with operational ownership. You’ll be accountable for how every ticket moves through support, from triage and prioritisation through each tier, escalation and resolution, with clear owners and follow-through at every stage.
You’ll also make sure CX, customers and Engineering stay aligned on escalated issues until the resolution is confirmed and communicated back. You’ll work in close partnership with the TPS Manager (who retains TPS people leadership and technical delivery), and you’ll get results through influence as much as authority, working with Product, Engineering and the wider Support organisation.
Responsibilities:
- Own how tickets move from triage through each support tier, technical escalation and resolution
- Define ownership, handover expectations and follow-through across local and offshore teams, and hold teams to them
- Act as the escalation point for complex or high-priority cases
- Monitor workflow health (ageing tickets, handover quality, escalation follow-through) and act early on bottlenecks
- Make sure every escalated issue has a named owner, a scheduled next update and a confirmed outcome
- Communicate confirmed resolutions back to customers and the teams involved
- Hold Product and Engineering to agreed SLAs on escalated issues
- Act as the Voice of the Customer, bringing organised insights to Product
- Establish shared support processes with the TPS Manager
- Agree and regularly review boundaries and handoffs between Support and TPS
- Lead, coach and develop Product Support Specialists in the Philippines and Pakistan
- Own team performance against CSAT, first response and resolution times, quality scores and SLA adherence
- Run 1:1s, team meetings and performance conversations, and support career growth
- Manage coverage, rosters and handovers across time zones
- Recruit, onboard and train new team members with local leadership and HR
- Keep internal documentation current and well used
- Train the team and broader customer-facing teams on products and new features
- Use data to spot trends, forecast capacity and report to senior leadership
Requirements:
- 5+ years in technical or product support within SaaS or tech, including 2+ years leading a support team
- A track record of building support operations, including triage, tiering, escalation and handover processes others actually follow
- Proven ability to drive accountability through influence with peers and partner teams who don’t report to you
- Experience managing distributed or offshore teams across countries and time zones, with cultural awareness and the ability to build trust remotely
- Strong coaching skills and a history of building motivated, high-performing teams
- Strong troubleshooting skills and the ability to vet product issues with Product and Engineering
- Experience running closed-loop escalation communication
- A customer-first mindset and clear communication across email, SMS, phone and video
- A data-driven approach to support metrics and reporting
- Flexibility to work across time zones as needed
- Experience with Zendesk, Salesforce or Intercom is highly regarded
Benefits:
- Open and transparent culture
- $650/month health and wellbeing allowance, spend it your way
- 4 weeks’ annual leave
- Melbourne CBD office on the corner of Queen & Collins St, with end-of-trip facilities and bike storage
- Snacks and drinks always stocked
- Catered lunch in the last week of every month