Lead - Escalation Desk

Impact you can create Escalations are defining moments in the enterprise lifecycle. In this high-visibility role, you won't just manage crises—you will be the strategic anchor that turns high-pressure, ambiguous technical failures into opportunities for trust-building and systemic improvement. Operating across a matrixed global organization, your learning agility and cross-functional leadership will directly protect revenue, influence product roadmaps, and safeguard the Freshworks brand. By joining us, you will: Turn Crisis into Customer Loyalty: Act as the ultimate single point of accountability, transforming chaotic, multi-stakeholder escalations into highly coordinated journeys toward full system stabilization. Bridge the Enterprise Ecosystem: Shatter operational silos by commanding cross-functional "situation rooms" that unite Support, Customer Success, Product, and Engineering under a singular mission. Protect Revenue & Executive Confidence: Serve as a trusted advisor to C-level executives globally, providing transparent, high-empathy communication that de-escalates tension when significant revenue is at risk. Fuel a Culture of Continuous Learning: Ensure that no crisis is wasted. By championing meticulous post-mortems, you will translate reactive fire-fighting into proactive product updates and operational blueprints. R&R (Roles & Responsibilities) Cross-Functional Crisis Orchestration: Lead the end-to-end lifecycle of high-severity and executive-level escalations, rapidly aligning engineering, product, and customer-facing teams to establish ownership, action plans, and success criteria. Situation Room Leadership: Facilitate highly focused, high-stakes internal and external alignment calls, maintaining operational momentum and cross-functional accountability under intense pressure. Executive-Ready Communication: Synthesize highly complex technical anomalies into concise, business-impact language, delivering regular strategic briefings to senior internal and external stakeholders. Holistic Customer Advocacy: Represent the voice of the enterprise client internally, balancing deep operational empathy with clear, transparent, and realistic expectation setting. Root Cause & Prevention Architecture: Conduct post-incident reviews (PIRs) and partner closely with Product and Engineering to diagnose systemic vulnerabilities, track corrective actions, and continuously update escalation playbooks. Performance Insights: Monitor and report on core escalation metrics, contributing to executive dashboards that inform strategic resourcing and risk management.

Skills Learning Agility & Technical Comprehension: A proven capacity to quickly deconstruct complex, unfamiliar cloud software architectures and technical dependencies on the fly to accurately assess business risk. Dynamic Ambiguity Management: The ability to remain grounded, make high-stakes decisions, and prioritize fluid tasks simultaneously in an fast-evolving, high-pressure environment. Cross-Functional Influence & Diplomacy: Exceptional interpersonal authority to guide, influence, and hold teams accountable across Product, Engineering, and Success without direct reporting lines. Executive Presence: Superior written and verbal communication skills, with the diplomatic finesse required to manage conflict and align conflicting perspectives at the C-suite level. Data-Driven Problem Solving: Strong analytical grounding in root cause analysis (RCA) frameworks and a transition mindset that naturally shifts from reactive resolution to preventative strategy. Qualifications Professional Experience: 6+ years of progressive experience in enterprise Support, Technical Program Management (TPM), Customer Success, or Incident Management within a B2B SaaS environment. Escalation Mastery: 3+ years of dedicated experience directly managing high-severity, high-revenue, or executive-level enterprise escalations. Cross-Functional Track Record: Demonstrated experience partnering directly with Engin