Escalation Manager

Summary

The Escalation Manager is responsible for leading customer-facing escalation management during high-impact incidents and operational events. This role serves as the primary interface between the customer and internal response teams, ensuring timely, accurate updates while allowing technical teams to remain focused on diagnosis and recovery.

The Escalation Manager unblocks response teams, coordinates cross-functional engagement, and manages the external “incident choreography” so that technical work proceeds without distraction and customers maintain confidence in the response.

** Responsibilities**

• Serve as the primary point of contact for customers during escalated incidents

• Deliver clear, structured, and confidence-building updates tailored to customer audiences

• Manage customer expectations around timelines, impact, and next steps

• Field inbound customer questions and requests to prevent disruption of technical response efforts

• Maintain professional presence during high-pressure customer interactions

• Ensure the appropriate internal teams are engaged and unblocked throughout the incident lifecycle

• Identify and remove operational, procedural, or communication blockers affecting response teams

• Drive escalation paths when progress stalls or additional authority is required

• Coordinate vendors, site teams, and internal stakeholders as needed

• Maintain situational awareness across parallel workstreams

• Ensure decisions, risks, and dependencies are clearly communicated

• Guide the incident through defined escalation and response processes

• Support structured handoffs as incidents evolve or transition between teams

• Partner with technical leads to ensure customer-facing summaries are accurate and aligned

• Track and communicate customer-relevant outcomes and commitments

• Support post-incident reviews with a focus on escalation effectiveness and communication quality

• Help refine customer communication playbooks and escalation protocols

Education and Experience

• Strong experience in customer-facing incident or escalation management

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, especially in high-stakes situations

• Ability to translate technical progress into customer-appropriate updates

• Proven ability to remain calm, organized, and credible under pressure

• Strong coordination and stakeholder management skills

• Sound judgment in balancing transparency, accuracy, and timing

Preferred Qualifications

• Background in SRE, operations, technical account management, or incident management

• Experience working directly with enterprise customers during outages or critical events

• Familiarity with incident response frameworks and escalation models

• Experience acting as a buffer between customers and technical teams

Other Considerations

• Up to 15% of travel may be required. Employees must have a valid driver’s license and the ability to drive and/or fly to client and other customer locations.

• The employee is responsible for owning a credit card and managing expenses personally to be reimbursed bi-weekly.