IT Support Team Lead job description

IT support — IT Support Team Lead
Runs the desk day to day: queues, staffing and standards.

RESPONSIBILITIES
- Turn messy operational data into reporting that leaders act on, including unwelcome findings, and reconcile reports that disagree.
- Run problem investigations across the desk's ticket history, prioritize which problems get investigated first, and coach others through the method.
- Set SLA targets for new services being onboarded, and renegotiate a target that data shows is unrealistic.
- Design device management for a mixed fleet, keeping work data separate on personal phones, and move between platforms without stranding users.
- Bring an estate with legacy software and exceptions to a patched state, and design the staged rollout that keeps it there.
- Review access where permissions are nested and system ownership is disputed, and produce evidence an auditor accepts.

REQUIREMENTS
- Experience at the Senior IT Support Engineer level (level 3 of 5) or equivalent
- Holds CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+, ITIL 4 Foundation and Microsoft 365 Certified: Endpoint Administrator Associate

REQUIRED SKILLS
Service Desk
- Ticket Triage and Prioritization — You can set the triage rules for the desk, review priority calls that assessors disagree on, and adjust queues when volume shifts.
- Service Restoration Coordination — You can lead a major incident bridge, hold the response to a structured process under pressure, and run the post-incident review.
- IT Problem Investigation and Trend Analysis — You can run problem investigations across the desk's ticket history, prioritize which problems get investigated first, and coach others through the method.
- Service Level Management — You can set SLA targets for new services being onboarded, and renegotiate a target that data shows is unrealistic.
- User Communication and Service Experience — You can handle complex complaints from users or managers, and use satisfaction results to change how the desk communicates.

Endpoint Support
- Endpoint Provisioning and Configuration — You can plan a hardware refresh or OS migration across the fleet, sequencing it to avoid disruption, and set the standard image policy.
- Remote Troubleshooting and Diagnostics — You can set the remote support tooling and standards for the desk, and step in on the faults nobody else can pin down.
- Mobile Device Management — You can design device management for a mixed fleet, keeping work data separate on personal phones, and move between platforms without stranding users.
- Patch and Update Management — You can bring an estate with legacy software and exceptions to a patched state, and design the staged rollout that keeps it there.
- Print and Peripheral Support — You can diagnose a peripheral fault end to end, through drivers, print servers and stubborn docking stations, and get the user working without a rebuild. You notice when the same model keeps failing and deal with the cause.
- Endpoint Security Operations — You can design the encryption, agent health and application control checks for the whole fleet, and hand confirmed threats to the security team with the evidence.

Identity & Access
- Identity and Account Lifecycle Management — You can audit the joiner, mover and leaver process for gaps, and fix the automation or handoff that causes missed accounts.
- Access Reviews and Permission Audits — You can review access where permissions are nested and system ownership is disputed, and produce evidence an auditor accepts.
- Directory and Group Management — You can restructure a directory that has grown messy across sites or after a merger, without breaking the systems that depend on it.
- Password and Multi-Factor Authentication Support — You can find why an account keeps locking or a factor keeps failing and fix the cause, and stop a social engineering attempt made through a reset request.

Infrastructure
- Network Connectivity Support — You can plan connectivity for a new office or remote team, and set the standards for VPN and Wi-Fi that the rest of the desk works to.
- SaaS Application Administration — You can own the administration standard for the organization's core SaaS platforms, and lead a migration or major configuration change.
- Cloud Storage and File Sharing Administration — You can set up team storage with a documented reason for each permission, and untangle folders that are shared too widely.
- IT Asset and License Management — You can forecast license and hardware needs ahead of renewals, and negotiate the numbers down using evidence of actual use.
- Backup and Data Recovery Support — You can design what is backed up, how often and how far back for systems with different recovery needs, and prove the plan by rehearsing a restore.

IT Operations
- Knowledge Base and User Enablement — You can set the knowledge base standard for the desk, and run user guides or short training that cut tickets on common issues.
- IT Vendor and Contract Coordination — You can run a supplier relationship day to day, covering renewals, license counts and faults that cross into their equipment. You spot when the organization is paying for something it stopped using.
- IT Operations Reporting and Metrics — You can turn messy operational data into reporting that leaders act on, including unwelcome findings, and reconcile reports that disagree.
- IT Shift Handover and Escalation Management — You can run handover across a team or several sites so nothing falls between shifts, and set the escalation thresholds others work to.
- IT Operations Planning and Capacity — You can plan staffing, tooling and spend for your own area a year ahead, and flag business changes that will add tickets before they arrive.
- IT Change Management — You can manage a high-impact change from approval through implementation, and check that the release policy was followed.

Delivery
- Project Management — You can keep several people's work in step across teams, agree priorities and hand-offs with them, and keep one shared task list that all of them actually use.
- Planning & Estimation — You can estimate work that spans several teams, name the assumptions behind each figure, and rework the plan when those assumptions break.
- Ownership & Accountability — You can hold accountability for outcomes delivered mostly by other people, taking the blame when it fails and passing on the credit when it works.
- Quality Focus — You can set how quality is checked on complex work shared by several teams, and you spot the problems that only appear where their pieces meet.

Craft
- Problem Solving — You can make the call on a problem outside your expertise and explain its cost, time and risk.
- Domain Expertise — You can bring in good practice from outside the organization and make it work here, and your judgment clearly improves the work you touch.
- Continuous Learning — You can judge which new ideas are worth the team's time and which are not, and you make room for the people around you to learn too.

Communication
- Communication — You can bring disagreeing groups to agreement on the facts and the next steps, and help colleagues frame a difficult or sensitive message.
- Collaboration — You can align teams with competing priorities on a common goal, surfacing the conflict early instead of letting it harden into resentment.
- Writing & Documentation — You can own the documents behind a large piece of work, coordinating contributions so that people who were not involved can carry it on.
- Stakeholder Management — You can hold senior and external relationships, negotiate between competing demands, and deliver unwelcome news without losing trust.

Leadership
- Leadership — You can lead across team boundaries, build the credibility that makes people follow you by choice, and create room for others to lead.
- Mentoring — You can develop other mentors, coach people through career decisions rather than tasks, and lift the capability of a whole team.
- Strategic Thinking — You can set direction for an area, choose deliberately what not to do, and defend that choice when it is challenged.

REQUIRED CERTIFICATIONS
- CompTIA A+ (required from IT Support Engineer)
- CompTIA Network+ (required from Senior IT Support Engineer)
- ITIL 4 Foundation (required from Senior IT Support Engineer)
- Microsoft 365 Certified: Endpoint Administrator Associate (required from IT Support Team Lead)