Information Technology Service Desk Manager (MSP)

Specialized Recruiting Group - Charlotte, NC; Independence Township (OH); On-site; USD 80,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Specialized Recruiting Group is seeking an IT Service Desk Manager for a managed services environment in the United States. This leadership role oversees a nine-person service desk, ensuring timely responses, effective escalation, and proactive customer communication.

The candidate will drive service improvements, mentor technicians across multiple tiers, and maintain dashboards for ticketing and performance. This role requires hands-on leadership and strong MSP experience.

Qualifications

• Experience leading a service desk, help desk, or managed services team within an MSP or customer-facing IT services organization.
• Ability to manage ticket queues, SLAs, and customer communications with proactivity and accountability.
• Strong coaching, feedback, and performance management skills for technicians at multiple levels.
• Technical credibility to guide troubleshooting and know when to escalate.
• Experience with MSP platforms such as ConnectWise, Autotask, HaloPSA, Datto, or similar.

Responsibilities

• Lead the day-to-day performance of a nine-person IT service desk.
• Maintain visibility into new, unassigned, aging, overdue, and high-priority tickets.
• Assign and redistribute work based on urgency, complexity, and workload.
• Ensure outages, security incidents, and business-critical issues receive immediate attention.
• Coach and develop service desk technicians from Tier 1 to Tier 2 and Tier 2 to Tier 3.
• Monitor KPIs and follow up on commitments to verify completion.
• Communicate with customers with timely, professional updates throughout the process.

Skills

Leadership

Service desk

MSP operations

Escalation management

Team coaching

Tools

ConnectWise

Autotask

HaloPSA

Datto

N-able

Kaseya

NinjaOne

IT Glue

Job description

Information Technology Service Desk Manager - Managed Services Provider

Employment Type

Contract-to-hire or Full-Time

About the Opportunity

We are seeking an experienced IT Service Desk Manager to lead a team of nine technical support professionals within an established managed IT services environment. This is a hands‑on leadership role for someone who takes ownership of the entire service experience - not simply someone who manages reports, meetings, and metrics.

The Service Desk Manager will maintain continuous awareness of the support operation: what is coming into the queue, what needs immediate attention, which technicians are overloaded or need assistance, which tickets are becoming stale, what customers have been promised, and where an issue may require escalation. You do not need to be the most senior engineer on the team. You do need enough technical depth and judgment to recognize when troubleshooting is not progressing appropriately, ask the right questions, and know when and where to elevate.

The goal is simple: identify and address problems before a customer or senior leadership has to point them out.

What You'll Own

Service Desk Operations

• Lead the day-to-day performance of a nine-person IT service desk.
• Maintain active visibility into new, unassigned, aging, overdue, and high-priority tickets.
• Assign and redistribute work based on urgency, complexity, technician workload, and skill level.
• Ensure outages, security incidents, and other business‑critical issues receive immediate attention.
• Identify stalled or poorly progressing tickets and intervene before they become customer escalations.
• Monitor response and resolution performance, stale-ticket volume, workload distribution, and other service‑level KPIs.
• Own service issues through completion, even when the technical work has been delegated to someone else.
• Follow up on commitments and verify that assigned work is actually completed.
• Directly manage, coach, and develop service desk technicians across varying levels of experience.
• Establish clear expectations and hold team members accountable for performance, communication, documentation, and follow-through.
• Conduct regular one-on-one meetings and provide timely, constructive feedback.
• Understand each technician's strengths, weaknesses, workload, and training needs.
• Help develop technicians from Tier 1 to Tier 2 and Tier 2 to Tier 3 responsibilities.
• Coordinate training and development with senior technical resources.
• Recognize strong performance while addressing recurring performance or accountability issues directly.

Customer Service & Escalations

• Ensure customers receive timely, professional, and proactive communication throughout the support process.
• Step into sensitive or escalated customer situations when appropriate.
• Make sure customers understand the current status, next step, and ownership of their issue.
• Anticipate potential escalations rather than waiting for a customer complaint.
• Recognize when an issue has exceeded an appropriate troubleshooting window or technician skill level and engage senior engineering resources.
• Provide leadership with concise, actionable summaries of significant customer, technical, or security-related issues.

Quality, Process & Documentation

• Review tickets for troubleshooting quality, professionalism, completeness, and documentation.
• Ensure technicians clearly document work performed, troubleshooting steps, customer communication, and next actions.
• Look beyond individual tickets to identify recurring issues and opportunities for root‑cause resolution.
• Maintain and improve processes involving ticket handling, escalation, onboarding/offboarding, patching, documentation, and recurring operational responsibilities.
• Identify single points of failure and ensure important procedures are documented and transferable.
• Continuously look for opportunities to improve consistency, efficiency, accountability, and the customer experience.

Technical Environment

This is a leadership position rather than a senior engineering role, but the Service Desk Manager must be technically credible and comfortable overseeing support involving:

• Microsoft 365
• Microsoft Intune and endpoint management
• Windows desktop and server environments
• Active Directory
• Backup and disaster recovery
• Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tools
• User onboarding and offboarding
• Fundamental cybersecurity concepts
• MSP ticketing, PSA, and documentation platforms

Experience with ConnectWise is highly relevant. Experience with comparable MSP platforms such as Autotask, HaloPSA, Datto, N-able, Kaseya, NinjaOne, IT Glue, or similar technologies is also valuable.

What We're Looking For

The strongest candidates will have previous experience leading a service desk, help desk, technical support, or managed services team, ideally within an MSP or other customer-facing IT services organization.

We are particularly interested in someone who:

• Has directly managed and developed technical support professionals.
• Understands the pace, accountability, and customer expectations of an MSP environment.
• Is highly organized and maintains awareness of multiple priorities simultaneously.
• Takes a proactive rather than reactive approach to service delivery.
• Is comfortable holding technical employees accountable.
• Has strong customer-facing written and verbal communication skills.
• Can remain calm and decisive during outages and escalations.
• Follows up consistently and does not assume delegated work has been completed.
• Can recognize ineffective troubleshooting and determine when escalation is appropriate.
• Looks for root causes instead of repeatedly addressing symptoms.
• Challenges inefficient processes and follows through on improvements.
• Is technically curious and comfortable asking senior engineers for assistance when appropriate.
• Takes personal ownership of both team performance and the customer experience.

What Success Looks Like

A successful Service Desk Manager creates an operation that senior leadership does not need to constantly check behind.

Tickets don't unexpectedly sit untouched. Critical issues are recognized quickly. Technicians know what is expected of them and receive the coaching needed to improve. Workloads are appropriately distributed. Customers receive updates before they have to ask. Escalations happen at the right time. Documentation is useful and consistent. Recurring problems are identified and investigated.

Most importantly, when something goes wrong, this person takes ownership of making sure it gets resolved—and then looks for a way to prevent it from happening again!