Service Desk Lead

asmexternalcareersite; Quantico (VA); On-site; USD 75,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

ASM Research is seeking a Help Desk Lead to oversee the internal IT Help Desk operations in the United States. The role blends hands-on troubleshooting with team leadership, supervising help desk analysts, managing ticket workflows, and driving continuous service delivery improvements.

The successful candidate will manage escalations, monitor SLAs, develop policies, and report on metrics while coordinating with cross-functional IT teams and ensuring security policy compliance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience as stated in the job description.
• Secret Security Clearance is required.
• 4–7 years of experience in a help desk or IT support leadership role.
• Experience with ticketing systems and ITSM best practices.
• Excellent troubleshooting skills across hardware, software, and network-level issues.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for explaining technical issues to non-technical staff.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, coach, and motivate a team.

Responsibilities

• Supervise, schedule, and mentor Help Desk Analysts/Technicians, providing coaching and performance feedback.
• Serve as the escalation point for complex technical issues that frontline staff cannot resolve.
• Monitor ticket queues to ensure SLAs are met; reassign or prioritize tickets as needed.
• Develop, document, and enforce Help Desk policies, procedures, and knowledge base articles.
• Track and report on key metrics (ticket volume, resolution time, CSAT, first-call resolution).
• Monitor and support Tier 0 deflection effectiveness for internal users.
• Coordinate shift handoff with day shift lead/manager and overnight/weekend team.
• Manage onboarding/offboarding IT processes (account provisioning, equipment setup, access requests).
• Coordinate with other IT teams on incident and problem management.
• Identify recurring issues and drive root-cause analysis and permanent fixes.
• Administer and support ticketing systems (ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, Zendesk).
• Assist in training new hires on tools, systems, and support standards.
• Participate in IT projects (system rollouts, software deployments, hardware refreshes).
• Ensure compliance with security policies (password resets, access control, data handling).

Skills

ITSM experience

Troubleshooting

Communication

Leadership

Ticketing systems

Education

Bachelor's degree

Associate degree +2 years experience

4 years relevant experience

Tools

ServiceNow

Jira Service Management

Zendesk

Job description

The Help Desk Lead oversees the daily operations of the internal IT Help Desk, ensuring timely, high-quality technical support for employees. This role combines hands-on troubleshooting with team leadership — supervising help desk analysts, managing ticket workflows, and driving continuous improvement in service delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Supervise, schedule, and mentor Help Desk Analysts/Technicians, providing coaching and performance feedback.
• Serve as the escalation point for complex technical issues that front-line staff cannot resolve.
• Monitor ticket queues to ensure SLAs are met; reassign or prioritize tickets as needed.
• Develop, document, and enforce Help Desk policies, procedures, and knowledge base articles.
• Track and report on key metrics (ticket volume, resolution time, CSAT, first-call resolution).
• Monitor and support Tier 0 (self-service/chatbot) deflection effectiveness for internal users.
• Coordinate shift handoff with both the day shift lead/manager and the overnight/weekend team to maintain continuous ticket ownership across shift transitions.
• Manage onboarding/offboarding IT processes (account provisioning, equipment setup, access requests).
• Coordinate with other IT teams (Network, Security, Systems) on incident and problem management.
• Identify recurring issues and drive root-cause analysis and permanent fixes.
• Administer and support ticketing systems (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, Zendesk).
• Assist in training new hires on tools, systems, and support standards.
• Participate in IT projects (system rollouts, software deployments, hardware refreshes).
• Ensure compliance with security policies (password resets, access control, data handling).

Required Qualifications

• Bachelors Degree, or Associated degree +2 years relevant experience, or 4 years relevant experience.
• Secret Security Clearance
• 4-7 years of experience.
• Experience with ticketing systems and ITSM best practices.
• Excellent troubleshooting skills across hardware, software, and network-level issues.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to explain technical issues to non-technical staff.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, coach, and motivate a team.

Preferred Qualifications

• ITIL Foundation certification.
• CompTIA A+, Network+, or Security+ certification.
• Familiarity with scripting/automation for routine tasks (PowerShell, etc.).

Compensation Ranges

Compensation ranges for ASM Research positions vary depending on multiple factors; including but not limited to, location, skill set, level of education, certifications, client requirements, contract-specific affordability, government clearance and investigation level, and years of experience. The compensation displayed for this role is a general guideline based on these factors and is unique to each role. Monetary compensation is one component of ASM's overall compensation and benefits package for employees.

EEO Requirements

It is the policy of ASM that an individual's race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation or national origin are not and will not be considered in any personnel or management decisions. We affirm our commitment to these fundamental policies.

All recruiting, hiring, training, and promoting for all job classifications is done without regard to race, color, religion, sex, disability, or age. All decisions on employment are made to abide by the principle of equal employment.

Physical Requirements

The physical requirements described in "Knowledge, Skills and Abilities" above are representative of those which must be met by an employee to successfully perform the primary functions of this job. (For example, "light office duties' or "lifting up to 50 pounds" or "some travel" required.) Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with qualifying disabilities, who are otherwise qualified, to perform the primary functions.

Disclaimer

The preceding job description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job.