Customer Support & Operations Team Lead

✨ What you’ll be working on

Instrumentl is hiring a Customer Support & Operations Team Lead for a remote role in the USA. This is a strong fit for someone who has already worked in customer support, support operations, or CX in a SaaS environment and is ready for a hands-on leadership role.

This isn’t a “manage from a distance” kind of job. You’ll still be close to the actual work handling tickets, escalations, billing issues, bug reports, help center updates, and support workflows while also improving the systems behind the team. You’ll help shape how support runs as Instrumentl grows, including how the company uses AI support tools, self-serve workflows, team processes, and quality standards.

If you like building better support systems while still staying close to the customer experience itself, this role looks worth a serious look.

About the Company

Instrumentl is a SaaS platform built for nonprofits and grant-funded organizations. The product helps teams discover grants, track deadlines, manage funding opportunities, and stay organized without relying on messy spreadsheets.

The company says more than 5,500 nonprofits use Instrumentl, ranging from local organizations to larger institutions like the San Diego Zoo and the University of Alaska. Instrumentl is also a YC-backed company and says it has moved over $1 billion in grant funding through its platform.

About the Role

As the Customer Support & Operations Team Lead, you’ll sit at the intersection of customer support, support operations, AI workflow management, and team leadership.

You’ll report to Instrumentl’s VP of Customer Success and take ownership of the systems, workflows, and day-to-day processes that keep support running smoothly. That includes helping customers directly, but also improving the internal setup behind the scenes things like queue management, escalation paths, QA, support reporting, AI-assisted support workflows, and documentation.

This is a player-coach role, which means you won’t just supervise the team from above. You’ll still be in the queue yourself, helping with customer questions, billing issues, escalations, bugs, and product education while also coaching the team and improving the support operation overall.

The company also makes it clear that this role has room to grow into a broader support management role as the team scales.

What You’ll Be Doing

Own the customer support experience

• Handle customer tickets, escalations, billing questions, bug reports, and product-related support
• Set expectations for response quality, accuracy, tone, and escalation handling
• Improve response and resolution times for high-priority support issues while keeping customer satisfaction high
• Build simple QA processes so support quality is reviewed and improved consistently

Improve support with AI and self-serve workflows

• Help manage and improve Fin / AI support workflows
• Review AI-generated answers, monitor performance, and tighten support workflows where needed
• Identify repetitive ticket types that could be solved through automation, macros, help center updates, or product education
• Build human-in-the-loop support workflows so AI handles more of the repetitive work without creating a bad customer experience
• Surface recurring gaps in documentation, AI support quality, or product understanding

Build and improve the support operating system

• Manage support queues, routing, SLAs, escalation paths, and team coverage planning
• Improve workflows around billing, cancellations, and refunds in collaboration with Finance and Customer Success
• Oversee operational support processes like spreadsheet-import workflows and contractor-supported tasks
• Create internal documentation, playbooks, and process guides so support knowledge is easier to scale
• Build reporting that helps leadership understand ticket volume, customer pain points, team performance, and future support risks

Work closely with other teams

• Partner with Product, Engineering, Finance, Customer Success, and the Support Engineer to resolve issues cleanly
• Help separate true product bugs from billing issues, customer confusion, or product education gaps
• Surface recurring customer pain points and turn them into clear recommendations for internal teams
• Follow up with customers when issues need deeper investigation or a delayed resolution

Lead and support the team

• Manage one full-time support team member along with contractors and VAs
• Set clear expectations around quality, speed, empathy, and ownership
• Coach the team, improve onboarding, and help new contributors ramp faster
• Help decide when the team needs additional headcount and what the next version of support should look like

What They’re Looking For

Required

• 4+ years of experience in customer support, support operations, CX, or a related SaaS support role
• Experience owning support quality, workflows, or operations, not just answering tickets
• Prior people management experience
• Strong writing and customer communication skills
• Ability to explain billing issues, bugs, or confusing product situations in a way non-technical customers can understand
• Comfortable working in a hands-on player-coach role
• Familiarity with using AI in support workflows and enough confidence to improve AI-assisted support quality
• Ability to work in a fast-moving environment where processes are still evolving

Nice to Have

• Experience with Intercom, Fin, or similar support tools like Zendesk, Help Scout, Ada, Forethought, or Gorgias
• Experience supporting billing-heavy workflows such as subscriptions, refunds, payment failures, or plan changes
• Experience managing operational workflows like spreadsheet imports or contractor-supported support tasks
• Experience supporting nonprofits, SMB customers, or prosumer SaaS users
• Experience working in a remote startup environment

Benefits

• 100% covered health, dental, and vision insurance for employees
• 50% coverage for dependents
• Generous PTO, including parental leave
• 401(k)
• Company laptop
• Home office / workstation setup stipend
• The chance to work with nonprofit organizations doing meaningful work across the US