Senior Operations Manager

Zendesk

Senior Operations Manager improving product delivery operations and processes at Zendesk. Collaborating cross-functionally to enhance operational rigor in the Product Development team.

Posted 4/15/2026full-timeRemote • California, Colorado, Texas, Virginia, Washington • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $146,000 - $218,000 per yearWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Partner with Product, Engineering, and Design leaders to improve end-to-end product delivery operations, including planning, execution, and delivery tracking.
Support roadmap and portfolio execution by establishing clear operating mechanisms for prioritization, sequencing, dependency management, and progress visibility.
Drive quarterly and annual planning processes, improving how teams translate strategy into achievable plans, milestones, and measurable outcomes.
Improve ways of working across teams by reinforcing effective Scrum practices (e.g., sprint planning, backlog health, retrospectives, iteration goals) while adapting approach to team maturity and context.
Identify operational friction and implement AI-first process improvements that reduce ambiguity, shorten feedback loops, and increase delivery predictability.
Define and socialize a lightweight set of delivery health metrics and reporting mechanisms that support decision-making without creating overhead.
Use Jira to support consistent execution (e.g., clean intake, clear work definitions, reporting views), and partner with tooling owners/admins as needed to improve configurations and usage patterns.
Facilitate alignment across cross-functional stakeholders, ensuring teams have shared understanding of scope, timelines, risks, and dependencies.
Create documentation, templates, and playbooks that enable consistency and scale across the Product Development organization.

Requirements

What you’ll need

7+ years of experience in Product Development Operations or similar roles within a SaaS company.
Experience supporting product development life cycles and cross-functional delivery across Product, Engineering, and Design.
Demonstrated success leading quarterly and annual planning processes, including roadmap operationalization and execution tracking.
Strong working knowledge of Scrum and agile delivery practices, with the ability to coach or guide teams toward pragmatic, effective execution.
Experience using Jira to manage and track work (boards, backlogs, workflows, reporting), with the ability to drive consistent adoption and operational hygiene.
Strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills, with a track record of turning ambiguous problems into structured plans and scalable processes.
Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to influence without authority.

Benefits

Comp & perks

bonus
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Hard Skills & Tools

product development operationsScrumagile delivery practicesroadmap operationalizationexecution trackingprocess improvementsdelivery health metricsplanning processesdependency managementportfolio execution

Soft Skills

critical thinkingproblem-solvingcommunicationstakeholder managementinfluence without authorityteam coachingalignment facilitationdocumentation creationtemplate developmentplaybook creation