Lead, Support Operations

Saaspo; Canada; Remote; CAD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work policy

Job summary

Shopify Inc. seeks a Support Operations Lead who thinks in systems and leads through influence. You’ll own operational processes, AI-enabled improvements, and analytics to scale support for thousands of advisors and merchants.

You’ll work across Operations, Workforce Planning, Delivery, Product, and Data to build scalable solutions while maintaining judgment on automation and human input.

Qualifications

• Experience leading operations or support in a large, global organization.
• Experience with AI-driven workflows and automation.
• Ability to influence cross-functionally without direct authority.
• Strong analytical skills and data storytelling to drive decisions.

Responsibilities

• Understand before building; run real discovery to identify root causes.
• Prioritize by impact on merchants, advisors, or business.
• Design processes with clear ownership, measurable outcomes, and feedback loops.
• Automate where stable and repeatable, preserve human judgment where needed.
• Build reliable metrics and always-on reporting for leadership.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives without direct reports.
• Use AI with taste; communicate outputs that don’t feel AI-generated.
• Share a clear point of view and surface problems before asked.

Skills

Systems thinking

Operations leadership

AI in operations

Cross-functional collaboration

Data-driven

BigQuery

Dashboards

Automation

Tools

CRM tools

Job description

We're looking for a Support Operations Lead who thinks in systems, seeks to understand before building, and leads through influence. You'll own the operational processes, systems, and intelligence behind Support Operations. That means diagnosing root causes, redesigning processes to improve outcomes (not just efficiency), and using automation and AI with judgment to build scalable solutions.

You'll help thousands of Support Advisors do their best work while improving the experience for the merchants and partners they serve.

This is an individual contributor role. You won't manage people, but you will set the bar. You'll take on big, tricky problems, work with stakeholders at every level of the organization, and get hands-on to build the solution, not just recommend it.

Key responsibilities

Understand before building. Run real discovery and find the root cause, not the symptom.

Prioritize by impact on the merchant, the Support Advisor, or the business.

Design processes that work, not just processes that exist. Build in clear ownership, measurable outcomes, and feedback loops. If a process doesn't improve outcomes, redesign it or retire it.

Exercise judgment on when to automate and when not to. Automate stable, repeatable work, keep the calls that need human judgment, and never automate a broken process.

Build reliable metrics and reporting. Turn one-off analyses into always-on reporting so leadership doesn't have to ask.

Lead across teams. You'll work with Operations, Workforce Planning, Delivery, Product, Data teams. You'll ship operational improvements with people who don't report to you.

Use AI with taste. Build, analyze, and communicate with AI tools, and make the output not feel AI-generated.

Have a point of view, and make it visible. Bring an opinion to strategic discussions and surface problems and opportunities before you're asked. Communicate what you're building and the outcomes it drives so your impact is clear to teams and leadership.

What you bring

5+ years driving an operations or support function (Support Ops, RevOps, BizOps, or Product Ops) that included owning systems and processes end to end, not just coordinating them.

Experience improving operations in a large, complex, global organization, ideally a support organization, where the number of stakeholders and the complexity of systems demand a mature operations model.

Strong systems thinking. You anticipate second-order effects, constantly challenge the status quo, and optimize the whole system rather than one step at the expense of another.

Experience with operational discovery, service design, and process mapping, including building processes with clear ownership, measurable outcomes, and feedback loops.

Instinctive use of AI to create impact in your work, with a commitment to growing your AI proficiency as the tools evolve. You've built AI workflows, automations, or internal tools, and you know when automation adds value and when human judgment is still needed.

Data-driven problem solving. You're comfortable in BigQuery, dashboards, and messy data, and you've built reporting systems that changed how a team operated.

Proven cross-functional leadership, shipping change with teams that didn't report to you. You communicate clearly and manage change well, so teams know what's different and actually adopt it.

Familiarity with support tooling, CRM, routing, automation, and Support Advisor workflows, and with merchant, partner, or customer-support environments.

Comfort with ambiguity. There's no playbook, and taking initiative comes naturally.

What this role is (and isn’t)

Building, not just tracking. You'll design and ship solutions, not only manage timelines and coordinate handoffs.

Creating insight, not just reporting. Your analysis should change decisions, not only describe what happened.

Redesigning, not just maintaining. You'll improve how systems work, not only keep them running.

About the discipline

Support at Shopify

Every discipline at Shopify works close to real merchant problems. You'll join a team that owns meaningful scope, ships to a high bar, and helps millions of entrepreneurs start, run, and scale their businesses.

Growth and rewards

Mastery-matched compensation.

~Mastery

At Shopify, getting better at your craft and increasing your impact is how you grow. Twice a year, we assess both in our ~Mastery cycle, Shopify’s performance review. Achieving higher ~Mastery is a promotion, and when you earn a promotion your total rewards grow with it. Crafter and manager are equal paths, so you can pursue excellence in the craft you’re best at.

Total Rewards

With Flex Comp, your Rewards Wallet gives you agency over your compensation mix. Adjust your mix of cash, restricted share units, and stock options (including programs like Long-Term Equity)* to where it makes sense for you, and mix it up anytime as life and priorities change. Buying a house? Want more skin in the game? Just experimenting? It’s your call.

* Flex Comp program offerings vary based on location, role, and employment type. Full details are set out in our Terms & Conditions and related plan documents.

Built for real life

Room for the rest of your life.

Flexible work, remote by design

A flexible vacation policy means most Shopifolk can take the vacation days they feel they need to recharge.

If a change of everyday scenery is more your jam, Destination 90 means you can work from (almost) anywhere in the world for 90 days of the year.

Your setup

Your battlestation is your home base. Request the desk, chair, and AV gear you need to get shit done.

You need ‘em, we’ve got ‘em. Our health and welfare benefits may include health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance depending on your country. If you’re in a country without a package, you'll receive a monthly allowance. We also offer mental health support for you and your dependents, including immediate and confidential services like counseling and coaching sessions.

Family support

We offer fertility benefits globally, along with paid parental leave to welcome a new family member.

The Life Story is how we understand the themes of your career journey so far, human to human. What you’ve learned, and how you made a difference. Show us the trophies and the bruises: the problems you’ve solved, the challenges you encountered, the decisions you made, and the lessons you learned along the way.