Customer Operations Lead

Covalent | Workforce Operations; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Early impact role

Cross-functional collaboration

Professional development

Competitive salary

Remote work stipend

Job summary

Covalent builds workforce operations software for major manufacturers and helps scale support for enterprise customers. This role focuses on strengthening Covalent's Support operation, gaining product expertise, and expanding into customer operations and program scalability.

The position emphasizes proactive problem-solving, cross-functional collaboration, and long-term impact in a fast-growing startup environment, with remote work and periodic travel as needed.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in Customer Support, CX, Operations, or related tech roles.
• Experience owning or improving Support processes in a SaaS environment.
• Ability to identify operational problems and build scalable processes.

Responsibilities

• Actively respond to customer Support tickets with timely resolutions.
• Manage day-to-day Support operations: queue health, workflows, SLAs, escalations, continuous improvement.
• Identify opportunities to improve processes and customer experience from trends and feedback.
• Explore automation and AI tooling to reduce repetitive work and speed responses.
• Mentor teammates and potentially take on broader People-management responsibilities as needed.
• Coordinate product feedback and beta-testing with Product/Engineering.

Skills

5+ years experience

Remote work

Strong communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Technical troubleshooting

Data analysis

Customer support tooling

Zendesk

Jira

Pendo

Tools

Zendesk

Jira

Pendo

Job description

Covalent builds workforce operations software for some of the world’s largest and most advanced manufacturers. Our platform helps industrial companies understand the capabilities of their workforce, develop and qualify people for critical work, and deploy the right people to the right jobs. We work with leading aerospace, defense, and industrial organizations to solve complex workforce challenges across hundreds of operations worldwide.

As a Customer Operations Lead, you will play a critical role in scaling how Covalent supports its customers and users. You will initially focus on strengthening our Support operation-while becoming a subject matter expert on the Covalent platform.

As you develop deep product and customer expertise, the role will expand into strengthening the feedback and quality loop between Customer-facing teams and Product/Engineering, followed by broader ownership of customer operations and scalable support programs.

We are looking for a proactive operator and problem solver who can improve how things work today as Covalent continues to scale.

This position is remote with potential for occasional travel based on business needs.

What You'll Do

This role is designed for growth. Your initial focus will be strengthening and scaling Covalent's Support operation. As you demonstrate strong performance, sound judgment, and deep product and customer expertise, you will have the opportunity to expand your scope across product feedback, customer experience, and broader customer operations.

Support Operations & Customer Experience

Your initial priority will be strengthening and scaling the day-to-day Support operation.

• Actively respond to customer Support tickets, providing timely, and high-quality resolutions.
• Manage day-to-day Support operations, including queue health, workflows, prioritization, SLAs, escalations, and continuous improvement.
• Use Support trends and customer feedback to identify opportunities to improve processes and the overall customer experience.
• Identify opportunities for automation and AI-assisted tooling to reduce repetitive work, improve response times, and increase team leverage.
• Assist with API requests, customer data pulls, and reporting needs.
• Mentor and support other Support team members, with the opportunity to assume broader functional and people-management responsibilities as the function scales.

Product Feedback & Quality

• Validate reported customer issues through expected-behavior and initial QA testing before escalation to Engineering.
• Help establish clear criteria and workflows for distinguishing bugs, product gaps, feature requests, configuration issues, and user education needs.
• Capture, organize, and elevate recurring customer and Support feedback to Product and Engineering.
• Coordinate structured customer feedback and beta-testing activities when appropriate.
• Serve as a senior escalation point for complex customer and technical issues.
• Partner with Product and Engineering on bugs, customer-impacting issues, and release readiness.

Customer Operations

• Centralize appropriate Support and operational activities currently handled at the individual account or CSM level.
• Support complex customer configuration, site/location, user, and account-level operational requests.
• Identify opportunities to transition repetitive customer needs into scalable, centralized, or self-service experiences.
• Help ensure customer-facing teams have the information and resources needed to effectively support new and existing functionality.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in Customer Support, Customer Experience, Customer Operations, Technical Support, or a related customer-facing technology role.
• Experience owning or improving Support processes, workflows, escalations, or customer-facing operations within a SaaS environment.
• Demonstrated ability to identify operational problems and build scalable processes to solve them.
• Experience supporting complex enterprise customers and navigating high-priority customer escalations.
• Strong technical aptitude and the ability to learn complex SaaS products, troubleshoot issues, and communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience working cross-functionally with Product and Engineering teams on customer issues, bugs, or product feedback.
• Strong analytical skills and comfort using Support and customer data to identify trends and opportunities for improvement.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• High EQ and demonstrated ability to build credibility and trust with customers and internal stakeholders.
• Independent, solution-oriented approach with comfort operating in a fast-paced startup environment.
• Experience with SaaS Support, ticketing, product analytics, or issue-tracking platforms. Our current technical stack includes Zendesk, Jira, and Pendo.
• Experience supporting customers in regulated or complex industrial environments is a plus.
• Given the industries we serve, this position must meet Export Control compliance requirements, therefore a “US Person” as defined by 22 C.F.R.
• 120.15 is required. “US Person” includes a US Citizen, lawful permanent resident, refugee, or asylee.

Benefits

Our team is passionate about helping people gain in-demand skills that drive economic independence. To do so, we provide purpose-built software for technical training and workforce analytics in industrial environments. Our platform facilitates on-the-job learning and evaluations, validating proficiency for skilled workers. In joining us, you will be a part of that effort. We are early, scrappy, and will do what it takes to make our vision a reality. We’re backed by top-tier VC’s who share this mission with us.

Perks

• Becoming an early, high impact contributor to a growing customer organization
• Working with company leadership and a highly collaborative cross-functional team
• Opportunities for professional development and career growth
• Competitive salary & benefits
• The base salary range for this position is $80,000–$100,000. Compensation within the range will be determined based on the candidate’s relevant experience, skills, and demonstrated ability to take on the scope and responsibilities of the role.
• Remote work initiatives:
• Home office stipend
• L&D program
• Monthly team-building activities