Senior Manager - Site Reliability Engineering and IT Service Management Operations

About the Role

As a Senior Manager in SRE & ITSM Operations at Zendesk, your role is pivotal in leading the unified Run function for internal IT services. You will be responsible for setting strategy, driving process maturity, and owning Run outcomes. Your leadership will play a crucial role in establishing core capabilities, incident coverage, and observability standards across multiple applications.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the unified SRE & ITSM Operations team by setting strategy, driving process maturity, and owning Run outcomes.
• Own the ITSM roadmap, prioritize capabilities, define SLIs/SLOs, and error budgets for core applications.
• Serve as the primary interface to business stakeholders, automation teams, and platform owners.
• Establish and maintain operating cadences such as CAB, PIR/RCA, problem review, observability standards, and Run portfolio review.
• Build and develop the team in areas such as Observability, Incident Response, Change Management, Problem Management, and Asset Management.
• Drive KPIs including Tier 0 monitoring coverage, MTTA/MTTR, MTBI, recurrence reduction, FCR, and provisioning automation.
• Partner with Service Desk on intake, routing, and escalation taxonomy.
• Define Build vs Run boundaries, handoff contracts, and selective transfer criteria for sustaining work.
• Champion the hybrid SRE model through incident swarming, blameless postmortems, and error-budget-based change evolution.
• Contribute to organizational design by structuring squads, defining career progression, and scaling from MVP to full coverage.

Qualifications Required

• 8+ years of experience in IT Operations, SRE, ITSM, or Service Delivery, with at least 3 years in a people leadership role.
• Experience in building or scaling Run/SRE/ITSM capabilities in a global, high-growth tech company is preferred.
• Strong working knowledge of ITIL and SRE principles, with practical experience in hybrid SRE + ITSM models.
• Experience leading observability, incident management, change management, or problem management functions.
• Familiarity with SaaS application portfolios and CIO-run scope.
• Excellent strategic, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Data-driven mindset with a focus on KPIs, error budgets, SLIs/SLOs, and operational reporting.
• Ability to balance governance with velocity and understand Build vs Run boundaries.

About Zendesk

Zendesk is committed to offering a fulfilling and inclusive experience to its employees, with a hybrid way of working that allows for both in-person collaboration and remote work flexibility. If you are physically located in Karnataka or Maharashtra and align with Zendesk's values, this role could be a great fit for you.

As a Senior Manager at Zendesk, you will play a crucial role in establishing and improving core Run capabilities, enhancing stakeholder satisfaction, and fostering cross-functional partnerships. Your success will be measured by various metrics including improvement in MTTA/MTTR, stakeholder satisfaction, and team engagement within the Run function.