Sr. Manager, End User Services & IT Automation (Hybrid, Bangalore)

At Smartsheet, we're scaling our India Global Capability Centre, and we're hiring a Senior Manager to lead IT End User Services in a Mac-first environment.

You'll sit at the center of our AI and automation strategy for the service desk, leading two teams: Security & Desktop Systems, who pair Service Desk support with first-line security triage, and IT Automation, who build the AI agents and workflows that make that work faster. You'll decide where agents, deterministic automation, and people each belong, and own your teams' performance against SLAs and quality targets.

You'll partner daily with our US IT leadership, aligning on standards and sharing what works. For the right candidate, there is a clear path to Director within 12-18 months as we continue to scale the India GCC.

A note on the role: This is a hands-on leadership role, though not a hands-on-every-day one. You'll stay close enough to the technology to prototype, review, and debug alongside your engineers, and to step in when the team is stretched or something breaks. If you want to lead from a distance, this isn't the right fit. If you want to lead from credibility, it is.

You Will

AI & Automation Strategy

• Own the AI and automation strategy for the service desk, lead the IT Automation Engineers in delivering it, and decide which workflows suit AI agents, deterministic automation, or people
• Identify high-volume, repetitive Tier 1 work, prioritise it by impact, and ensure it is automated and measured
• Apply AI where it meaningfully reduces toil (e.g. intelligent ticket triage, SOC alert summarisation, AI-assisted knowledge base drafting), and design and review agent-based workflows end to end, including the tools they call and where a human approves
• Set guardrails for automated actions, including identity verification, least-privilege access, permissions-aware data retrieval, audit logging, and human approval for sensitive requests
• Set automation standards, review technical designs before deployment, and help build, debug, and fix automations when they fail or stall

Security & Desktop Systems

• Lead the India-based Security & Desktop Systems Specialists, working daily with US counterparts and peer service desk managers in other regions to align priorities, coverage, and ways of working
• Own team performance against SLAs, quality standards, and service desk metrics, and drive continuous improvement
• Oversee resolution of tickets across hardware, software, network, and user access
• Own desktop administration across a Mac-first fleet (macOS and Windows), including software deployment, system configuration, user provisioning, enrollment, and hardware lifecycle management
• Step in hands-on when volumes spike or critical issues arise, and coach people through the fix
• Keep knowledge base articles and process documentation current, high quality, and consistently maintained

Security Operations (Tier 1)

• Oversee the team's first-line SOC responsibilities, including alert triage, escalation, and response
• Ensure the team follows incident response playbooks, and improve them as threats and tooling evolve
• Partner with the wider security organisation so Tier 1 handoffs are fast, accurate, and well documented
• Track SOC quality and response metrics, and build the team's security capability over time
• Balance support and security workload so neither is neglected as volumes change

People Leadership

• Set clear direction, track progress, remove blockers, and escalate capacity constraints
• Partner with peer managers across regions to align service standards, share automation and best practices, and keep the global service desk experience consistent
• Design and lead onboarding for new team members
• Coach and mentor India-based engineers and specialists, support their career growth, and hire and develop top technical talent

You Have

Experience

• 8+ years in IT support, Service Desk, or end user services operations, with deep working knowledge of the systems and processes involved
• 4+ years leading technical support teams in matrixed or distributed organisations, including influencing peers and stakeholders across regions without direct authority
• Hands-on experience applying AI/LLM capabilities to IT workflows, such as function/tool calling, MCP, or API-based orchestration, and the judgment to know when to use agents, deterministic automation, or humans
• Experience overseeing Tier 1 security operations, such as alert triage, escalation, and incident response, ideally including endpoint (EDR) alerts
• Experience leading engineers who build automation or integrations, with enough technical depth to review their work, set direction, and contribute when needed
• A track record of setting direction and delivering cross-functional projects through ambiguity, and of stepping into technical problems credibly when the team needs it

Technical skills

• Strong hands-on expertise in macOS endpoint management through Jamf (or a comparable Apple MDM such as Kandji or Mosyle), including zero-touch enrollment, policy and patch management, and Apple Business Manager. Our fleet is roughly 80% macOS.
• Working knowledge of Windows endpoint management through Intune, covering the remaining 20% of our fleet
• Solid understanding of identity and productivity platforms (Okta, Entra ID, or Active Directory; M365)
• Working knowledge of an ITSM platform such as Freshservice, including workflow design, API integrations, and governance
• Working knowledge of scripting or programming (Python, PowerShell, or shell) sufficient to review and contribute to automation work
• Familiarity with EDR platforms (including macOS coverage), firewalls, and ITIL or equivalent frameworks

Preferred

• Experience building agents with LLM APIs/SDKs or agent frameworks, including retrieval (RAG) over IT knowledge
• Experience building and scaling a service desk or IT automation function

Work Style

• Excellent English communication, strong self-motivation, and reliable follow-through
• Comfortable moving between leading the team and rolling up your sleeves
• Willing to join a short early-morning call for US handover, and the occasional evening global meeting
• Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience

If you meet most of this but not every bullet, we'd still like to hear from you.