Senior Manager, Critical Spares & Network Readiness

Lumen; Trenton (NJ); Remote; USD 145,000 - 194,000; Full time

Job summary

Lumen is seeking a senior operations leader to own the enterprise Critical Sparing Program across the full spares lifecycle, ensuring timely restoration and high availability for network and CPE equipment. This remote role is open nationwide in the U.S., with responsibility for governance, performance, and cross-functional collaboration.

You'll lead managers and analysts, drive data‑driven decisions, coordinate with inventory planning, service assurance, and engineering, and push automation to

Qualifications

• Progressive leadership experience in supply chain, logistics, field services, service assurance, asset lifecycle management, telecommunications, network operations, or a comparable mission‑critical environment.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams, complex programs, urgent escalations, service‑level performance, and cross‑functional execution in high‑pressure operations.
• Strong analytical capability with the ability to convert operational data into timely decisions, decisive corrective action, and concise senior‑level communication.
• Preferred experience with critical spares, field operations, service assurance, telecommunications infrastructure, SAP S/4HANA, ERP systems, transportation, inventory planning, OpsConsole, and analytics platforms.

Responsibilities

• Own urgent, disciplined execution across the full spares lifecycle, including fulfillment, transportation, proof of delivery, depot replenishment, reverse logistics, repair/RMA, reclamation, asset recovery, billing, reconciliation, and closure.
• Establish program governance, operating controls, priorities, and improvement plans that directly support restoration speed, customer experience, service‑level commitments, and financial objectives.
• Maintain 24x7 operational readiness for network and CPE outages, critical installations, severe weather, disasters, and business continuity events as a core member of the Emergency Response Team.
• Serve as the senior escalation leader for urgent program issues, order failures, DOA replacements, transportation delays, repair constraints, and other customer‑or service‑impacting events requiring immediate action.
• Represent the Sparing Program in senior leadership forums, customer reviews, Service Assurance activities, network reliability initiatives, and enterprise operational events where readiness, response, and risk mitigation are critical.
• Lead managers, analysts, and operational teams with clear accountability, timely decision‑making, performance expectations, workforce planning, and succession development.
• Own performance management and business reviews covering availability, delivery SLA, restoration milestones, repair turnaround, return compliance, freight performance, asset recovery, and capital avoidance.
• Use analytics, root‑cause analysis, and decisive corrective action to resolve process gaps, duplicate orders, high‑failure parts, DOA/damage trends, logistics issues, and recurring service risks.
• Partner with Inventory Planning, Service Assurance and Technology Planning and Engineering on deployed‑base analysis, sparing requirements, min/max levels, forecasting, depot strategy, gap mitigation, and capital recommendations; partner with Vendor Quality and Strategic Sourcing on hardware quality, supplier performance, repair effectiveness, and corrective action.
• Drive automation, predictive capabilities, system integration, and process improvements that improve traceability, reduce manual effort, accelerate restoration, and strengthen operational control.

Skills

Supply chain

Logistics

Leadership

Program management

Tools

SAP S/4HANA

ERP systems

OpsConsole

Analytics platforms

Job description

Lumen is seeking a senior operations leader to own the enterprise Critical Sparing Program across the full spares lifecycle, ensuring timely restoration and high availability for network and CPE equipment. This remote role is open nationwide in the U.S., with responsibility for governance, performance, and cross-functional collaboration.

You'll lead managers and analysts, drive data‑driven decisions, coordinate with inventory planning, service assurance, and engineering, and push automation to