Sr. Product Escalation Manager

Illumio • Sunnyvale, CA

42d • $157,000 - $180,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Illumio is seeking a highly skilled and customer-focused Senior Escalation Manager to own the end-to-end management of customer-facing escalations that require engagement from Product, Engineering, Cloud Operations, SRE, Security, and Executive Leadership. This role serves as the operational leader for critical issues affecting customers, ensuring that escalations are triaged effectively, routed to the appropriate teams, communicated consistently, and driven to resolution. The Senior Escalation Manager will also own post-incident governance, including Root Cause Analysis (RCA) tracking, corrective action management, and escalation program reporting. The successful candidate combines a strong technical support background with exceptional program management, communication, and stakeholder management skills. They understand how enterprise customers experience problems, can effectively partner with engineering teams during high-pressure situations, and drive accountability across organizations to achieve customer outcomes. This role is ideal for someone who has grown through Technical Support, Escalation Management, Technical Account Management, or Incident Management and wants to influence product and engineering execution at scale.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in one or more of the following: Technical Support, Escalation Management, Technical Account Management, Incident Management, Customer Success Engineering, Technical Program Management
• Experience managing enterprise customer escalations.
• Strong understanding of SaaS products, cloud platforms, and enterprise software environments.
• Proven ability to coordinate work across multiple technical organizations.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives without direct authority.
• Exceptional communication and executive presentation skills.
• Experience driving Root Cause Analysis programs and post-incident reviews.
• Strong organizational, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous, and high-pressure situations.

Nice To Haves

• Previous experience as: Escalation Manager, Major Incident Manager, Support Manager, Senior Support Engineer, Technical Account Manager, Customer Success Engineer
• Experience working directly with Product Management and Engineering organizations.
• Knowledge of incident management frameworks, ITIL, SRE, or operational excellence practices.
• Experience with Jira, Salesforce, ServiceNow, PagerDuty, Zendesk, or similar systems.
• Experience supporting enterprise cybersecurity, cloud, infrastructure, or SaaS products.

Responsibilities

• Own the Escalation Lifecycle: Act as the central coordinator for all escalations entering the Product & Engineering organization. Evaluate incoming escalation requests and ensure proper severity classification. Route issues to the appropriate Product, Engineering, Cloud Operations, Security, or Platform teams. Establish and maintain ownership, accountability, and visibility throughout the escalation lifecycle. Monitor escalation progress and proactively remove blockers.
• Drive Cross-Functional Resolution: Lead cross-functional meetings focused on critical customer issues. Coordinate activities across Support, Customer Success, Product Management, Engineering, SRE, Operations, and Leadership. Drive alignment on mitigation plans, customer commitments, and resolution strategies. Escalate unresolved blockers to leadership when needed.
• Manage Executive and Customer Escalations: Provide structured executive updates for high-priority issues. Ensure field teams have timely and accurate information to communicate with customers. Partner with Customer Success and Support leadership to manage high-visibility customer situations. Represent Product & Engineering interests while maintaining customer advocacy.
• Own RCA and Corrective Action Governance: Manage the Root Cause Analysis program for escalated incidents. Ensure RCA timelines, reviews, approvals, and customer commitments are met. Track corrective and preventative actions through completion. Identify recurring issue patterns and systemic risks. Partner with engineering leaders to drive long-term improvements and prevent recurrence.
• Build Operational Excellence: Develop escalation metrics, dashboards, and executive reporting. Measure escalation trends, aging, response times, SLA adherence, RCA completion, and corrective action closure. Establish consistent escalation processes, standards, and governance. Drive continuous improvement initiatives that improve customer experience and operational efficiency.

Benefits

• Illumio believes that an environment of unique backgrounds, experiences, viewpoints, and individual contributions creates a culture of belonging, drives our future, and makes us stronger together in support of our customers and their success.

What This Job Offers

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