Service Desk Manager - L3

POSITION SUMMARY

The L3 Support Manager is responsible for leading the highest level of technical support within the Managed Services function, ensuring the effective resolution of complex incidents, major problems, and service issues impacting customers and internal operations.

This role provides leadership to a team of senior L3 engineers, acting as the escalation point for critical technical matters while driving operational excellence, technical standards, knowledge management, and continual service improvement. The successful candidate will balance hands-on technical leadership with people management responsibilities, ensuring customer commitments, service levels, and quality standards are consistently achieved.

The role requires strong MSP experience, exceptional troubleshooting capability, and the ability to develop high-performing technical teams operating across cloud, infrastructure, networking, security, and modern workplace technologies.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

· 5+ years' experience in a senior technical support, infrastructure, or managed services leadership role.

· Proven experience managing or mentoring senior technical engineers.

· Strong MSP background supporting multiple customers within SLA-driven environments.

· Expert knowledge across Microsoft technologies, including M365, Azure, Windows Server, Active Directory and Entra ID.

· Strong understanding of virtualisation technologies including VMware, Horizon/Omnissa or equivalent.

· Advanced networking knowledge covering routing, switching, firewalls and VPN technologies.

· Demonstrable experience leading complex technical escalations and major incident resolution.

· Strong knowledge of ITIL principles, Incident Management, Problem Management and Change Management.

· Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Desirable

· ITIL v4 Foundation or higher.

· Microsoft Azure certifications.

· VMware VCP certification.

· CCNA, Fortinet NSE, Palo Alto or equivalent networking certifications.

· Experience supporting globally distributed service operations.

· Experience with MSP tooling including Halo PSA, Ninja, Datto RMM or equivalent.

KEY JOB ELEMENTS

Technical Leadership

· Lead the L3 engineering function and act as the highest technical escalation point.

· Drive rapid resolution of complex incidents impacting customer services.

· Coordinate technical resources during Major Incidents and Priority 1 events.

· Ensure root cause analysis is completed for recurring or critical issues.

· Define and maintain technical support standards, processes and best practices.

Service Delivery

· Ensure SLAs, OLAs, KPIs and customer outcomes are consistently achieved.

· Monitor technical performance, trends, backlog health and escalation volumes.

· Work closely with Service Delivery, NOC, SOC and Project teams to maintain operational excellence.

· Drive continual service improvement initiatives and automation opportunities.

Problem Management

· Own Problem Management processes across the support organisation.

· Identify recurring service issues and implement preventative measures.

· Ensure known errors and workarounds are documented and communicated.

Customer Engagement

· Participate in customer service reviews and technical governance meetings.

· Provide leadership during service-critical events and customer escalations.

· Build trusted relationships with key customer stakeholders.

Operational Governance

· Ensure compliance with ITIL, ISO27001 and internal operational standards.

· Review technical quality, ticket standards and engineering outputs.

· Produce management reports, KPI analysis and service insights.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

· A natural technical leader who leads by example.

· Calm and decisive under pressure.

· Highly organised and operationally disciplined.

· Passionate about coaching and developing engineers.

· Customer focused with strong commercial awareness.

· Analytical with excellent problem-solving capability.

· Able to communicate technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.

· Collaborative and able to build strong cross-functional relationships.

· Accountable, professional and driven by continual improvement.

· Motivated by building high-performing teams and a positive engineering culture.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity in our workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive.