Report To: COO

Employment Status: Full Time

Salary: Competitive and Market based 

Who is ControlPlane?

ControlPlane is a London-based cybersecurity and cloud native consultancy specialising in securing modern infrastructure, applications, and software supply chains. We help organisations design, build, and operate secure cloud native platforms using Kubernetes, open source technologies, and DevSecOps practices.

Our approach is grounded in engineering excellence and a philosophy of security by design and security by default. By embedding security into platforms, delivery pipelines, and infrastructure, we enable organisations to adopt cloud native architectures while maintaining resilience, compliance, and operational assurance.

Sitting at the intersection of cloud-native engineering, cybersecurity, and AI security, we provide services across platform engineering, DevSecOps, threat modelling, penetration testing, and software supply chain security. We also support organisations adopting machine learning and generative AI, ensuring these systems are deployed responsibly, protecting sensitive data, securing models, and safeguarding the underlying infrastructure.

We are trusted by organisations in highly regulated sectors, including financial services, healthcare, and national infrastructure. Our work includes modernising technology platforms, strengthening cyber resilience, and implementing zero-trust architectures and secure cloud-native transformations.

Beyond consulting, we actively contribute to the open source ecosystem, supporting projects like Flux CD (GitOps continuous delivery) and OpenBao (cloud-native secrets management). These efforts improve the security, reliability, and transparency of the technologies organisations depend on.

Looking ahead, ControlPlane will continue to solve complex security challenges, advance software supply chain security, and support safe adoption of next-generation open source, cloud, and AI technologies, including initiatives like FINOS AI readiness, ensuring innovation is delivered securely at scale.

What We’re Looking For in a Product Support & Service Delivery Manager: 

We are seeking an experienced Product Support & Service Delivery Manager to design, build, and lead a 24/7 product support function within a growing software and cloud-native business.

This role is focused on product and platform support, not traditional end-user IT support. You will establish and operate a service capability handling software defects, security vulnerabilities (including CVEs), and platform-related issues, ensuring seamless coordination between clients, open source communities, and engineering teams.

You will own the full lifecycle of support, from intake and triage through to resolution, working closely with development teams to ensure issues are prioritised, tracked, and resolved in line with SLAs.

This role operates within a mixed commercial and open source environment, requiring effective management of both client-reported issues and community-driven contributions.

This role includes a secondary responsibility for internal IT support, ensuring smooth day-to-day operations across the business

Key Responsibilities

Service Desk Build & Product Support Capability

• Design and implement a product-focused service desk from the ground up, including tooling, workflows, SLAs, and escalation models
• Establish intake channels spanning ITSM platforms and developer tooling (e.g. Git-based issue tracking such as GitLab)
• Define and embed ITIL-aligned processes adapted for software/product support environments
• Build processes for managing software defects, feature issues, and security vulnerabilities (including CVEs)
• Design support workflows that accommodate both commercial clients and open source users/contributors
• Establish triage processes for issues originating from community channels (e.g. public repositories and issue trackers)
• Define and track KPIs, SLAs, and operational metrics to drive continuous improvement

24/7 Incident & Issue Management

• Own end-to-end incident and issue management across a 24/7 support model
• Define triage, severity classification, and escalation paths aligned to product impact and client SLAs
• Ensure effective handoffs between service desk, engineering, and development teams
• Drive timely resolution of incidents, bugs, and vulnerabilities with clear communication to stakeholders
• Implement structured problem management to reduce recurring issues and improve platform stability

DevOps & Engineering Integration

• Act as the operational bridge between clients, open source contributors, and engineering teams
• Work closely with developers to ensure issues are clearly defined, reproducible, and prioritised appropriately
• Manage and prioritise issues raised via both private client channels and public repositories (e.g. GitLab)
• Integrate service desk workflows with development lifecycle tools (e.g. GitLab issues, CI/CD pipelines)
• Ensure clear governance and separation between client-specific issues and open source community contributions
• Support release cycles by ensuring known issues, fixes, and changes are communicated and tracked effectively
• Contribute to improving feedback loops between support, product, and engineering teams

Customer Success & Service Delivery

• Own the client-facing service relationship for product support
• Lead structured service review meetings, presenting against SLAs, incident trends, and resolution performance
• Build strong client relationships through transparency, responsiveness, and proactive communication
• Translate community-driven issues and roadmap impacts into clear, client-relevant updates
• Manage client expectations where open source dependencies or contributions influence delivery timelines
• Identify trends in support demand to inform product improvements and reduce repeat issues

Security & Vulnerability Handling

• Establish processes for intake, triage, and tracking of security vulnerabilities (including CVEs)
• Coordinate with security and engineering teams to ensure timely remediation and client communication
• Manage vulnerabilities in line with responsible disclosure practices
• Coordinate between public disclosure requirements and client communication timelines
• Ensure appropriate prioritisation and escalation of security-related issues
• Maintain clear audit trails and reporting for vulnerability management activities

Internal IT Support (Secondary Responsibility)

• Establish and manage a lightweight internal IT support capability for day-to-day business operations
• Oversee user onboarding/offboarding, access management, and basic system support (e.g. SaaS tools, endpoints, collaboration platforms)
• Act as the escalation point for internal technical issues, ensuring timely and effective resolution
• Implement simple, efficient internal ticketing processes aligned (where appropriate) with the primary service desk tooling
• Maintain documentation and knowledge base content for common internal support scenarios
• Ensure internal support standards reflect the same level of responsiveness and professionalism as client-facing services

Team & Capability Development

• Recruit, onboard, and develop a product support team as the function scales
• Define roles, responsibilities, and on-call structures to support a 24/7 operating model
• Embed a culture of accountability, technical curiosity, and customer focus
• Establish clear performance expectations and development pathways within the team

Preferred Skills and Experience 

• Proven experience building or scaling a service desk or product support function from scratch
• Strong background in software, SaaS, or product support environments (not traditional IT end-user support)
• Experience managing software defects, incident triage, and vulnerability handling (e.g. CVEs)
• Familiarity with DevOps environments and the software development lifecycle (SDLC)
• Experience integrating service desk tooling with engineering workflows (e.g. GitLab, Jira, or similar)
• Demonstrable experience operating in a client-facing, SLA-driven environment

Key Skills & Attributes

• Strong technical understanding of software systems and issue diagnostics
• Ability to translate client-reported issues into actionable engineering requirements
• Operationally rigorous with a strong process design mindset
• Comfortable operating within a 24/7 support model with clear ownership and escalation
• Excellent stakeholder management across clients, engineers, and leadership
• Data-driven approach to service performance and continuous improvement

Desirable

• Experience working with or supporting open source software and community-driven development models
• ITIL certification (Foundation or higher), applied pragmatically in product environments
• Exposure to DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud-native platforms
• Experience in regulated or security-sensitive environments

What Success Looks Like (First 6–12 Months)

• A fully operational, 24/7 product support function with clear intake, triage, and escalation processes
• Seamless integration between service desk and engineering workflows (e.g. GitLab or equivalent)
• Measurable improvements in incident response and resolution times
• Effective handling and communication of software defects and security vulnerabilities
• High levels of client satisfaction driven by transparency and reliability
• A scalable support model aligned to product growth and engineering capacity
• A simple, effective internal IT support capability enabling smooth day-to-day business operations

Benefits

ControlPlane is a dynamic, cutting edge and passionate business for which to work. Our employees are the heart of our business, which means we care about our company culture and our employees’ wellbeing and progression. Alongside this, as our colleague you will have the following benefits:

• Generous and competitive salary
• Bonus
• Pension (Salary Sacrifice, up to 5% Matched)
• 33 days of paid holiday, including paid leave for the standard 8 UK Bank Holidays 
• Death in Service Insurance
• Enhanced Parental Leave
• Private Medical insurance

We believe our peers are equally as important as the technology we use. We’re looking for people of the highest personal calibre, quietly confident, with a good work ethic, keenness to learn, emotional maturity and respect, who know that “we” is more than “me”, and who embrace human diversity of all kinds. As we grow you will help us to build a company culture of which we can all be proud. If you espouse these values, we want you!

NOTE FOR RECRUITMENT AGENCIES: Please do not call or email our team speculatively, we do not accept unsolicited CVs.