Manager, Technical Operations

Santa Barbara Office•Santa Barbara, CA

About The Position

The Manager, Technical Operations is a strategic and cross-functional leader responsible for aligning technical operations with business priorities, direction, and customer outcomes. This role owns the performance, scalability, and continuous improvement of technical operations across multiple teams or functional areas. This leader partners closely with Product, Sales, and Supply Chain leadership to translate business demand into operational capacity, ensuring the organization can deliver with speed, quality, and predictability. The Technical Operations Manager is accountable for building systems, developing leaders, and driving operational excellence at scale. While maintaining strong technical awareness across server, storage, and networking platforms, the primary focus of this role is organizational effectiveness, cross-functional alignment, and long-term capability building.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline, operations, or business preferred (or equivalent experience)
5–8+ years of experience in technical operations, data center, or hardware lifecycle environments
2+ years of experience leading leaders (e.g., supervisors, team leads, or associate managers)
Proven ability to improve performance metrics, and lead cross-functional initiatives
Strong business acumen with experience aligning operational execution to product strategy and customer outcomes
Demonstrated success in capacity planning, workforce management, and operational forecasting
Excellent communication and management skills, with the ability to influence at multiple levels of the organization
Solid technical foundation in enterprise server, storage, and/or networking environments

Nice To Haves

Industry certification preferred: CompTIA Server+, Cisco CCNA, VMware VCP, or equivalent enterprise IT credential
Leadership or professional development coursework a plus

Responsibilities

Own operational performance across one or more technical teams, ensuring alignment to company objectives, customer commitments, and product strategy
Translate business demand, sales pipeline, and product initiatives into actionable operational plans, including staffing, capacity, and workflow design
Establish and track key performance indicators (KPIs) across throughput, quality, efficiency, and delivery timelines
Identify systemic risks, bottlenecks, and scaling challenges, and implement sustainable solutions that improve performance at a structural level
Drive operational readiness for new product introductions, service offerings, or process changes
Partner directly with the Product group to align operational capabilities with product roadmap, timelines, and customer requirements
Collaborate with Sales and Customer Support leadership to ensure delivery commitments are realistic, transparent, and consistently met
Serve as the primary escalation point for cross-functional issues impacting delivery, customer experience, or operational efficiency
Represent Technical Operations in planning discussions, providing data-driven insights and recommendations to influence business decisions
Build strong relationships across departments, ensuring Operations is seen as a proactive, solutions-oriented partner
Lead and develop Associate Technical Operations Managers and/or other frontline leaders, ensuring consistent leadership quality and accountability across teams
Establish clear expectations, performance standards, and development plans for leaders within the organization
Coach leaders on people management, prioritization, and decision-making to elevate overall team effectiveness
Build a culture of accountability, ownership, and continuous improvement across all levels of the organization
Drive organizational design decisions, including team structure, role clarity, and succession planning
Own workforce planning, ensuring appropriate staffing levels, skill mix, and coverage to meet current and future demand
Balance labor allocation across teams to optimize throughput and minimize bottlenecks or idle capacity
Partner with leadership on hiring plans, budget considerations, and long-term resource strategy
Evaluate and implement tools, systems, and automation to improve efficiency and scalability
Establish, standardize, and continuously improve operational processes, SOPs, and workflows across teams
Ensure consistency in execution across teams while enabling flexibility where needed
Leverage data and reporting to identify trends, measure impact, and guide decision-making
Maintain a high-level understanding of enterprise server, storage, and networking technologies to guide operational decisions
Ensure quality standards are consistently met across all teams through structured review processes and accountability mechanisms
Partner with senior technical resources to address complex issues, drive root cause analysis, and implement preventative solutions