Technical Support Specialist Lead (MED-Central IT)

Northwestern University; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Northwestern University Feinberg IT seeks a Technical Support Specialist Lead to supervise the Remote Support team of 10 professionals. You will oversee daily operations, staffing, escalations, and service quality for faculty, staff, students and researchers across the Feinberg School of Medicine.

Reporting to the Director of Customer Support, you will mentor staff, develop knowledge content, coordinate with Field Support, Application Support and Infrastructure, and partner with Northwestern

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in computer science, information technology, or related; OR appropriate combination of education and experience.
• 5 years' experience in consulting, project management, training, technical support, or user service in an IT environment or related field.
• Work history showing increasing levels of responsibility and leadership.
• Experience as both end-user and administrator in service areas such as user support, desktop support, help desk management, and documentation.

Responsibilities

• Strategize and plan for industry changes impacting workplace endpoint technology.
• Oversee daily front-line support operations: queue management, staffing, escalations, and service quality.
• Lead projects to install and maintain workplace endpoint technology.

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher in computer science / information technology

Job description

Department:

MED-Central IT

Salary/Grade:

ITS/79

Job Summary:

The Technical Support Specialist Lead serves as the supervisor and operational leader of the Remote Support team within Feinberg IT’s Customer Support group. Reporting to the Director of Customer Support, this hands‑on leadership position is responsible for supervising, mentoring, and developing a team of 10 support specialists who provide phone, chat, email, and remote technical support to the faculty, staff, students, and researchers of the Feinberg School of Medicine.

The position owns the day-to-day operation of Feinberg IT’s front‑line support: queue management, staffing coverage, escalations, and service quality. Responsibilities include monitoring ticket volume and response metrics, improving first‑contact resolution, maintaining knowledge base content, refining intake and routing in the ticketing system, and partnering with Field Support, Application Support, and Infrastructure teams to resolve complex issues. The successful candidate will possess experience supporting Windows and macOS endpoints and Microsoft 365 in an enterprise environment, working within an IT service management (ITSM) platform (Feinberg IT uses TeamDynamix), and applying ITIL-aligned incident, request, and knowledge management practices.

The Remote Support Lead collaborates closely with Customer Support leadership, information security and infrastructure, central Northwestern IT, and clinical partners such as Northwestern Medicine, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, along with their service desks, to coordinate escalations and deliver consistent, secure, and user‑centered support to faculty and staff who work across academic and clinical environments. Experience with endpoint management tools such as MECM and Jamf, Active Directory or Entra ID, and supporting users in a research or academic medical environment is desirable. Familiarity with service desk reporting, Knowledge‑Centered Service (KCS), or workflow automation tools such as Power Automate is beneficial. The ideal candidate combines strong troubleshooting skills with effective leadership, clear written and verbal communication, and a commitment to developing staff, improving processes, and delivering a high‑quality support experience to the Feinberg community.

Leads projects designed to accomplish an organizational area's systems requirements in regard to workplace endpoint technology. Develops, schedules and coordinates activities ensuring adherence to NU standards and information systems goals and objectives. Coordinates and ensures completion of contracted work. Oversees staff resolving service requests and incidents on a daily basis per University standards.

This specific role will be one of the three technical support specialist leads for the Feinberg IT team. The team will be organized into three groups,remote support, field support and procurement, and application support.

Specific Responsibilities:

Strategic Planning

• Researches and anticipates industry change and impact on workplace endpoint technology.
• Analyzes user's computing environment and recommends or coordinates changes as necessary
• Determines work strategies and assignments to meet department workload

Administration

• Assist staff in answering questions or supporting faculty and staff.
• Consults with users to assess needs and provide guidance and support regarding workplace endpoint technology.
• Manages change through collaboration with staff organizations, administrative units and other invested University service divisions.
• Develops project plans and partners with users to prioritize projects, daily work, and plans for future initiatives.
• Utilize information technology systems to meet specific client goals.

Development

• Leads projects partnering with users to deliver optimum service in regard to installation and maintenance of workplace endpoint technology.

Performance

• Leads projects to diagnose and resolve complex problems, questions and inquiries from clients using judgment and extensive experience.
• Demonstrates application of advanced knowledge of skills, methods, practices, policies, and procedures.
• Independently plans and prioritizes project and operational work.

Supervises

• Mentors, trains, evaluates performance, and conducts annual performance reviews.
• Provides work direction and/or supervises staff such as team members, subordinates, contractors, vendors, students, etc.
• Coaches and mentors staff.
• Manages projects ensuring timelines and deliverables are met and meet expectations.

Miscellaneous

• Performs other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree in a major such as computer science, information technology, or related; OR appropriate combination of education and experience.
• 5 years' experience in consulting, project management, training, technical support, or user service, in an information technology environment or other relevant experience required.
• Work history demonstrating increasing levels of responsibility and leadership.
• Experience as both an end-user and administrator in service areas such as user support, desktop support, help desk management, and documentation or other relevant experience required.

Infrastructure

• Adobe Creative Cloud Suite
• Box Collaborative Storage
• identity management/provisioning
• information security
• Linux Operating System
• Mac OS X Operating System
• Microsoft Exchange
• Microsoft Lync
• Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Outlook)
• Microsoft SharePoint
• Server hardware
• Storage hardware
• Windows Operating System

Compliance

• FERPA
• FISMA
• HIPAA
• HITECH

Analytical

• critical thinking
• Debugging
• decision making
• judgment
• problem solving
• read & interpret technical drawings