Title:  Expertise Centre Manager

Descartes Unites the People and Technology that Move the World

The need for efficient, secure, and agile supply chains and logistics operations has become ever more critical and complex.  By combining innovative technology, powerful trade intelligence and the reach of our network, Descartes helps get goods, information, transportation assets, and people where they’re needed, when they’re needed. 

We’re one of the most broadly deployed logistics and supply chain technology companies in the world. More than 26,000 customers around the globe use our cloud-based solutions to transform the way they move inventory and information to enhance productivity, better serve customers, thrive competitively, keep pace with evolving regulations, and respond to rapidly changing market conditions. Descartes is publicly traded (Nasdaq:DSGX, TSX:DSG) with headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and offices and partners around the world. With record financial performance for more than 16 years, we lead the industry in innovation investment. Every day, logistics service providers, manufacturers, retailers, distributors, and other logistics-intensive businesses of all sizes rely on our scale, stability, and comprehensive solution footprint to move what’s most important to them. Learn more at www.descartes.com. 
 
We’re growing fast and invite you to join our amazing team. 

Mission — Why the Job Exists

Lead and develop the UK Expertise Centre supporting BoxTop, our business-critical supply chain and freight management software.  Your mission is to build a high-performing, technically capable and resilient support operation that delivers consistently strong service, resolves complex customer issues effectively, and evolves to meet the changing needs of our customers and business.

Outcomes — What Success Looks Like

1. Deliver strong and consistent service performance by ensuring incidents and requests are appropriately prioritised, owned and progressed against agreed SLAs and KPIs, with customers kept informed through to resolution.
2. Build and develop a high-performing UK Expertise Centre team with clear expectations, effective workload management and strong accountability for individual, team and customer outcomes.
3. Increase the technical capability and self-sufficiency of the team by identifying knowledge gaps and implementing targeted coaching, training, knowledge sharing and improved diagnostic documentation across BoxTop and its supporting technologies.
4. Strengthen the management of complex escalations and major incidents, providing clear senior ownership and coordinating effectively with R&D, Product, Professional Services and other teams to achieve timely and sustainable resolutions.
5. Build trusted relationships with key customers through proactive communication, effective service reviews, transparent management of outstanding issues and early identification of emerging service risks.
6. Reduce recurring incidents and improve service quality by analysing trends, strengthening problem management, leading lessons-learned reviews and translating root causes into measurable preventative actions.
7. Develop a scalable and resilient support operation through effective recruitment, onboarding, coaching, performance management, workforce planning and knowledge sharing within a 24/7, business-critical environment.

Skills & Competencies — How the Work Gets Done

You are an experienced support leader who can combine strong people leadership with technical curiosity, sound judgement and a clear focus on customer outcomes.  You are comfortable operating in a business-critical software environment where priorities can change quickly and effective ownership and communication matter.

You will bring:

• Proven experience leading and developing a technical, application or enterprise software support team.
• Experience supporting business-critical software applications and customers.
• Strong knowledge of incident, request, escalation and problem management.
• Experience managing service delivery against defined SLAs and KPIs and using performance data to drive improvement.
• Strong people leadership, coaching and performance-management skills, with the ability to develop individual and team capability.
• The ability to prioritise competing demands and make effective, well-informed decisions under pressure.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting and problem-solving capabilities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the confidence to communicate with customers at operational and management levels.
• Experience collaborating effectively with Product, R&D and Software Development teams to resolve complex issues and drive sustainable improvements.

Experience in supply chain, freight forwarding, logistics, customs brokerage or international trade would be valuable, particularly where you have developed an understanding of the operational challenges faced by customers in these industries.

Additional relevant experience could include:

• Knowledge of customs declarations and brokerage processes.
• Understanding of air, ocean and/or road freight-forwarding processes.
• Experience supporting SaaS or cloud-based enterprise applications.
• Familiarity with integrations, APIs, EDI and data exchange.
• Experience with service-management or ticketing platforms.
• Knowledge of ITIL or similar service-management principles.
• Experience supporting geographically distributed teams and customers.

Culture Add: TEAM Values

We value team members who communicate with transparency, share information openly, and build trust across functions.  You bring excellence and expertise to your craft, holding a high bar for quality while continuously improving your skills.  You demonstrate accountability by owning outcomes, following through on commitments, and taking responsibility for results.  You are driven by metrics, using data and experimentation to inform decisions and deliver measurable impact.

Aptitudes

• Smart: Able to quickly understand complex systems, connect ideas, and make sound judgments.
• Curious: Actively seeks to understand customer problems, emerging technologies, and better ways of working.
• Coachable: Open to feedback, willing to adapt, and continuously improving through learning.

What’s in It for You

This role gives you meaningful ownership of the UK Expertise Centre supporting BoxTop and the opportunity to directly influence both service performance and the experience of customers who depend on our software for business-critical supply chain and freight operations.

You’ll have the autonomy to improve how the team operates, strengthen technical capability and introduce processes that make support increasingly scalable and resilient.  You’ll also have visibility with key customers and senior stakeholders, giving you the opportunity to demonstrate the impact of the improvements you lead.

Working closely with R&D, Product, Professional Services, Sales and colleagues across the wider Descartes organisation will give you broad exposure to our technology, customers and business, while allowing you to influence improvements beyond the support function.

As the operation evolves, you’ll have opportunities to broaden your leadership scope, deepen your expertise in supply chain and freight management technology, and take ownership of increasingly complex service, operational and customer challenges.

Join Us

As we scale, we’re looking for new doers, collaborators and innovators to join Descartes in uniting the people and technology that move the world as the Global Leader in Logistics and Supply Chain Technology. We’re entrepreneurial, hardworking, geeky-in-a-good way problem solvers. Guided by our values, we nurture a TEAM focused culture that invests in people and creates opportunities for advancement across a broad spectrum of career paths. We prioritize work-life balance and foster an environment with the space to take ownership, to be heard, and to carve a path for your individual accomplishments to help drive our success. At Descartes, everyone has a voice and the best idea wins, regardless of who makes it. We offer competitive compensation, great benefits, remote and flexible work hours, and the opportunity to join a company on an awesome mission with a great existing team and trajectory. 

Descartes also has a deep sense of environmental responsibility. Learn more about how we helped our customers save over 552,000 metric tons of CO2 in 2020 by reducing fuel and paper consumption: https://www.descartes.com/who-we-are/social-responsibility-sustainability/environmental-impact.  Join a team that’s committed to working with customers to conserve resources and enhance sustainability. 

If you feel you have 70% of the qualifications we are looking for, and Descartes sounds like the team and the mission you want to be part of, apply now. We can't promise it will be a fit, but we do promise to consider your experience. 

We conduct a mix of in-person and virtual interviews. Virtual interviews are held via Microsoft Teams and are recorded and transcribed. We may utilize AI tools to support our hiring team in notetaking, summarization, and internal training. AI tools are not used in our recruitment process for decision-making purposes. Recordings, transcripts, and notes are used for recruitment, including improvement of our process, and record-keeping purposes. Should you have any questions or concerns about our process, please connect with our hiring team in advance of scheduled interviews. 

We are an Equal Employment employer. We do not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religious creed, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, provincial, or local law. For more information about our commitment to equal employment opportunity, please review our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics at Descartes.com