Sr. Operations Manager

Zendesk • Washington, DC

1d • $146,000 - $218,000

About The Position

We are looking for a Senior Operations Manager to support the Product Development Operations team. You will work cross-functionally to strengthen operational rigor across Product Development—improving planning, execution, and ways of working so teams can deliver customer value with greater clarity, predictability, and impact. The Product Development Operations team at Zendesk enables the Product Development org to accelerate the value they deliver and help employees do their best work. In this role, you will bring strong operations and process design experience in a SaaS environment, a practical understanding of product development life cycles, and the ability to guide teams toward effective Scrum-based execution. While experience with Jira is required, the cornerstone of the role is building scalable, AI-first operational mechanisms that improve how teams plan and deliver. You will be a critical thinker and problem solver who can identify friction, simplify complexity, and implement solutions that scale—from planning and roadmap operating rhythms to day-to-day operational excellence. A key part of this role is leveraging AI thoughtfully and pragmatically to improve processes and reduce operational toil. You will help teams adopt AI-enabled workflows (including concepts like multi-agent orchestration) to automate repetitive work, improve decision support, and increase the quality and speed of operational execution.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in Product Development Operations or similar roles within a SaaS company.
• Experience supporting product development life cycles and cross-functional delivery across Product, Engineering, and Design.
• Demonstrated success leading quarterly and annual planning processes, including roadmap operationalization and execution tracking.
• Strong working knowledge of Scrum and agile delivery practices, with the ability to coach or guide teams toward pragmatic, effective execution.
• Experience using Jira to manage and track work (boards, backlogs, workflows, reporting), with the ability to drive consistent adoption and operational hygiene.
• Strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills, with a track record of turning ambiguous problems into structured plans and scalable processes.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to influence without authority.

Nice To Haves

• Experience operating in scaled delivery environments (multiple teams, shared platforms, cross-team dependencies).
• Familiarity with portfolio and roadmap tooling (e.g., Jira Advanced Roadmaps) and methods for balancing capacity, investment themes, and delivery risk.
• Experience designing operating rhythms and templates that increase visibility while minimizing process burden.
• Exposure to automation and/or AI-enabled workflows that reduce operational toil (e.g., status reporting, request triage, documentation support).

Responsibilities

• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Design leaders to improve end-to-end product delivery operations, including planning, execution, and delivery tracking.
• Support roadmap and portfolio execution by establishing clear operating mechanisms for prioritization, sequencing, dependency management, and progress visibility.
• Drive quarterly and annual planning processes, improving how teams translate strategy into achievable plans, milestones, and measurable outcomes.
• Improve ways of working across teams by reinforcing effective Scrum practices (e.g., sprint planning, backlog health, retrospectives, iteration goals) while adapting approach to team maturity and context.
• Identify operational friction and implement AI-first process improvements that reduce ambiguity, shorten feedback loops, and increase delivery predictability.
• Define and socialize a lightweight set of delivery health metrics and reporting mechanisms that support decision-making without creating overhead.
• Use Jira to support consistent execution (e.g., clean intake, clear work definitions, reporting views), and partner with tooling owners/admins as needed to improve configurations and usage patterns.
• Facilitate alignment across cross-functional stakeholders, ensuring teams have shared understanding of scope, timelines, risks, and dependencies.
• Create documentation, templates, and playbooks that enable consistency and scale across the Product Development organization.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed