Manager, Technical Support Engineering

Motive is a leading provider of tools that empower teams managing physical operations to enhance safety, productivity, and profitability. Our platform integrates safety, operations, and finance functions, enabling seamless management of drivers, vehicles, equipment, and fleet expenses within a single system. Leveraging advanced AI, Motive delivers comprehensive visibility and control while automating routine tasks to reduce manual workloads. Serving nearly 100,000 customers across diverse industries—including transportation, logistics, construction, energy, manufacturing, agriculture, retail, and the public sector—Motive supports organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses.

We are seeking an experienced Manager of Technical Support Engineering to lead a significant segment of our Tier 2 and Tier 3 Technical Support teams within Global Support. This leadership role involves overseeing performance, organizational design, and operational execution across multiple teams and customer segments such as SMB, MMC, and Enterprise/Strategic accounts. You will manage managers, senior individual contributors, and specialized support functions, driving key outcomes including customer satisfaction (CSAT), service level agreements (SLA), first contact resolution (FCR), backlog health, escalation quality, incident readiness, and overall team effectiveness. The ideal candidate will balance hands-on involvement during critical customer interactions with strategic planning to shape long-term organizational growth and cross-functional collaboration.

Key Responsibilities

- Own performance management, staffing strategies, and organizational health across multiple pods or business segments, ensuring consistent SLA and KPI achievement.
- Lead and develop managers and senior individual contributors, fostering leadership growth, accountability, and succession planning.
- Establish operating rhythms through goal-setting, business reviews, and action plans aligned with company priorities.
- Collaborate with Workforce Management, Recruiting, and Finance on workforce planning, including headcount, hiring, shift coverage, and capacity modeling.
- Drive high-quality performance management, coaching, career development, and retention for Technical Support Engineers and Technical Account Managers.
- Serve as the senior escalation leader for critical customer issues, major incidents, and strategic accounts, ensuring effective staffing, communication, and executive visibility.
- Participate in and help shape the leadership on-call model, leading incident response for high-priority events and ensuring thorough incident reviews.
- Manage queue health and backlog strategy by identifying systemic risks and implementing structural solutions.
- Develop scalable operating procedures, playbooks, escalation frameworks, and quality standards to improve consistency and customer outcomes.
- Partner with Support Operations, Enablement, and Backline teams to identify trends and convert insights into measurable improvements.
- Elevate knowledge management and operational rigor through documentation, runbooks, and support readiness initiatives.
- Represent Technical Support in cross-functional forums, articulating customer impact and operational risks.
- Advocate for customers by understanding pain points, protecting at-risk revenue, and ensuring timely resolution of critical issues.
- Lead strategic projects to enhance supportability, efficiency, tooling, and customer experience across teams.
- Influence product and engineering priorities by surfacing patterns from escalations and support data.
- Own executive reporting, synthesizing trends and recommendations for senior leadership.
- Collaborate with Support Operations and Business Intelligence teams to improve reporting infrastructure and data accuracy.
- Lead change management efforts to align stakeholders and ensure adoption of new workflows and tools.
- Anticipate scaling challenges and proactively design organizational structures and processes.
- Manage large cross-functional programs, aligning stakeholders on scope, milestones, risks, and success criteria.

Required Qualifications

- Technical degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
- Over 6 years of experience leading technical teams in fast-paced, high-volume support environments, including managing managers.
- Hands-on background as a technical support engineer or similar role prior to leadership.
- Proven success managing large support organizations with measurable impact on customer and operational outcomes.
- Experience handling complex escalations, incidents, and executive-level customer interactions with sound judgment.
- Strong track record of coaching and retaining high-performing managers and senior individual contributors.
- Ability to balance detailed operational oversight with strategic organizational planning.
- Deep understanding of support metrics such as CSAT, SLA, FCR, backlog health, and incident response.
- Experience collaborating cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Customer Success, Sales, and Operations.
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate data into actionable insights.
- Proficiency in Salesforce, Tableau, Google Sheets, or similar reporting tools.
- Comfortable delivering direct feedback and making difficult personnel decisions.
- Excellent communication skills, capable of influencing senior stakeholders.
- Passion for technical problem-solving, root cause analysis, and improving product reliability.
- Strong program and change management capabilities.
- High ownership, prioritization skills, and ability to manage competing demands in dynamic environments.
- Flexibility to support critical escalations and incidents outside regular hours.

Preferred Qualifications

- Hands-on experience with Salesforce case management, reporting, and workflow optimization.
- Familiarity with Tableau or similar BI tools for operational reporting.
- Knowledge of Jira, Confluence, and best practices in knowledge management.
- Experience in data-driven support strategies, including segmentation and cohort analysis.
- Background in IoT, telematics, fleet management, or related industries is a plus.

Motive is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace and is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.