Ground Operations Manager Jobs in Washington (NOW HIRING)

ROLE DESCRIPTION SUMMARY

The Manager, Gateway Operations Group (GOG) leads a team of Level‑2 operators responsible for safeguarding SES’s production environment through 24×7 remote operations of global RF gateways and end‑to‑end operational response. The role governs incident and change management, minimizes service risk, and ensures operational readiness for new gateway deployments. Acting as the operational link between Customer Operations, Engineering, and Field Services, the Manager drives production stability and continuous improvement through strong procedures, effective monitoring, practical automation, and a well‑trained, mission‑ready team.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES / KEY RESULT AREAS

• Lead Level‑2 Gateway Operations for global RF gateways, ensuring effective shift coverage, operator direction, disciplined handovers, and structured troubleshooting across all teleports.
• Provide operational escalation and after‑hours support during critical incidents, and lead or participate in major incident bridges to ensure rapid triage, clear communication, and coordinated resolution.
• Develop, maintain, and govern operator‑ready SOPs, MOPs, troubleshooting flows, and commissioning procedures, ensuring consistency and disciplined process adoption across the global operation.
• Manage change control for gateway operations, including intake, scheduling, risk/backout planning, and post‑change validation, ensuring all activities are properly documented and operationally sound.
• Validate new gateway builds and service readiness, ensuring alarms, access, documentation, monitoring, and KPIs are accurate, meaningful, and fully accepted before entering service.
• Develop team capability through structured training plans, cross‑training programs, coaching, and ongoing skill development to ensure full readiness across all gateway functions.
• Coordinate Smart Hands and site‑access workflows, including request management, onsite support coordination, and cost‑visibility to support operations and maintenance activities.
• Drive continuous improvement by maintaining an operations improvement backlog, implementing automation and AI‑assisted tooling, improving dashboards and telemetry, and identifying opportunities to enhance service quality and operational stability.

COMPETENCIES

• Demonstrates strong leadership in an operational environment, providing clear direction, prioritization, and decisive action during live incidents.
• Applies structured troubleshooting methods, leads major incident bridges, and ensures effective escalation and rapid, coordinated resolution.
• Develops, maintains, and enforces SOPs, MOPs, troubleshooting flows, and commissioning procedures, ensuring consistency and engineering rigor across all gateways.
• Manages change intake, risk assessment, scheduling, and post‑change validation; ensures new systems meet operational acceptance standards, including alarms, documentation, and monitoring.
• Validates dashboards, KPIs, alarms, and telemetry for accuracy and meaningful visibility; analyzes incident and performance trends to drive systemic improvements.
• Builds a high‑performing team through coaching, structured training, cross‑training, and role‑based development plans; fosters a culture of accountability and operational excellence.
• Communicates clearly with L3 engineering, Field Engineering, NOC, and leadership; provides concise reporting and coordinates Smart Hands and site‑access workflows effectively.
• Maintains an operations improvement backlog, leads initiatives that enhance service quality and efficiency, and champions practical automation and AI assistance to reduce toil and optimize workflows.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Engineering degree (Electrical/Telecommunications) or equivalent hands‑on experience in satellite gateway/teleport operations.
• 7–10+ years experience in gateway/teleport/satellite ground operations with substantial incident/change management exposure.
• Proven leadership in 24×7 operational environments, managing distributed teams.
• Demonstrated experience writing effective MOPs/SOPs and leading service‑restoration bridges.
• Hands‑on experience with ServiceNow, monitoring/observability platforms, and workforce scheduling tools.
• Familiarity with next‑generation gateway systems (HTS, SES‑17, mPOWER) and tools such as SATNMS, Kratos products.
• Exposure to Azure DevOps or similar operational backlog management platforms.
• ITIL literacy; understanding of alarm semantics, redundancy, and risk management.

OTHER KEY REQUIREMENTS / COMMENTS

• Ensure after hours availability, when required, to address critical incidents and management escalations.
• Job requires 5% travel

The salary range for this full-time position (US only) is $127,500 - $187,000.

Salary ranges are determined by role, level, and geographic location. Individual compensation within the range is determined based on work location and a variety of factors, including job-related skills, experience, qualifications, and relevant education or training.

Additional compensation and benefits may apply depending on the location and terms of employment.