Knowledge Center Team Lead

Overview

Empower AI is AI for government. Empower AI gives federal agency leaders the tools to elevate the potential of their workforce with a direct path for meaningful transformation. Headquartered in Reston, Va., Empower AI leverages three decades of experience solving complex challenges in Health, Defense, and Civilian missions. Our proven Empower AI Platform® provides a practical, sustainable path for clients to achieve transformation that is true to who they are, what they do, how they work, with the resources they have. The result is a government workforce that is exponentially more creative and productive. For more information, visit www.Empower.ai.

Empower AI is proud to be recognized as a 2024 Military Friendly Employer by Viqtory, the publisher of G.I. Jobs. This designation reflects the company’s commitment to hiring and supporting active-duty and veteran employees.

Responsibilities

This position will support our newly awarded DCSA contract.

Description

Empower AI is seeking a Knowledge Center Team Lead to supervise a team of Tier I Knowledge Center (KC) agents supporting the external industry partners and users of a Department of War agency on its portfolio of mission applications (e.g., DISS, NISS, NBIS). External users reach the KC through a dedicated toll-free number, support email, public web form, and public chatbot, and the KC agent creates and manages the ticket on their behalf. The Team Lead owns real-time team performance against SLAs and XLAs, coaches agents on external-user handling and manual ticket creation, enforces the email-based Customer-Confirmed Ticket Closure process, and coordinates escalations to application resolver groups. The Team Lead also owns the handoff between the external-facing KC and the internal application resolver groups that support the mission.  External users cannot see internal systems, so when a Tier I KC agent cannot resolve an issue, the Team Lead determines the correct resolver group, ensures the ticket is complete and correctly prioritized, tracks it to resolution, and manages communication back to the external user through the email-based Customer-Confirmed Ticket Closure process. This role analyzes escalation patterns to reduce future escalations and is the KC's senior technical resource for complex application issues. This is a salaried, FLSA-exempt position in which you will independently analyze situations, determine the appropriate course of action, and exercise discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance to the program and its customers.

THIS IS A REMOTE POSITION WITH UP TO 10% OF TRAVEL INVOLVED.

JOB DUTIES:

• Supervise a team of Tier I service desk and Knowledge Center analysts across core hours (6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET) and extended-hours shifts, including scheduling, coverage planning, attendance, performance management, coaching, and professional development.
• Own real-time and daily operational performance: monitor contact volumes, queue health, ticket aging, First Contact Resolution, Tier 0 deflection, and PL1-PL4 SLA adherence, and take corrective action to keep open tickets exceeding resolution SLA within the acceptable quality level.
• Enforce the Customer-Confirmed Ticket Closure process and ticket documentation standards through a structured quality assurance program, including ticket audits, call and chat reviews, and calibrated feedback.
• Lead the service desk's response to PL1/PL2 critical incidents, including communications, situational awareness alerts, and coordination with Tier II, endpoint, communications, and application resolver groups.
• Analyze escalated external-user tickets to determine the correct application resolver group, required information, and Priority Level, and manage seamless, documented handoffs while retaining ownership of the customer outcome.
• Track escalated tickets against PL1-PL4 resolution SLAs, drive follow-up with resolver groups, and manage external-user communication and the email-based Customer-Confirmed Ticket Closure process.
• Serve as the KC's senior technical resource for complex application issues (account, access, role, workflow, and data issues on DISS, NISS, NBIS, and other designated applications), resolving what can be resolved within KC authority.
• Analyze escalation drivers by application, recommend knowledge articles, chatbot content, and process changes that reduce escalations, and contribute to Problem Resolution Action Plans and the CX Roadmap.
• Serve as the senior technical decision-maker within Tier I, analyzing the most complex incidents and service requests to determine root cause and business impact, and deciding resolution strategy, priority, and escalation across Tier II, Tier III, and specialized resolver groups.
• Own team-level queue management decisions: assess real-time contact volumes and ticket aging, rebalance work across analysts, and direct actions to protect PL1-PL4 SLAs, First Contact Resolution targets, and the acceptable quality level for aged tickets.
• Design and administer the Tier I quality assurance review process, evaluating tickets and customer interactions against standards, enforcing the Customer-Confirmed Ticket Closure process, and determining coaching and corrective actions for analysts.
• Lead analysis of Tier 0/I trend and escalation data to identify recurring and high-impact problems, and prepare After-Action Reviews, Root Cause Analyses, and Problem Resolution Action Plans with recommended permanent solutions.

Qualifications

REQUIREMENTS:

• Bachelor's degree and a minimum of 3 years of related experience (a Master's degree with 1 year of related experience, or an additional 4 years of related experience in lieu of a degree, may be substituted). 7 total years (education/experience) required.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen.
• Must have an Active Secret Clearance (favorably adjudicated T3/T3R) to start.
• Must be willing and able to obtain TS/SCI eligibility after start, if required by mission needs.
• Must be within investigation scope and/or currently enrolled in Continuous Evaluation / Continuous Vetting.
• Must possess and maintain a current DoD 8570/8140 IAT Level I baseline certification (e.g., CompTIA A+ CE, Network+ CE, Security+ CE, CCNA-Security, or SSCP) prior to performing cybersecurity-related duties.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, analyze problems, determine the appropriate course of action, and exercise discretion and independent judgment with limited day-to-day supervision.
• Minimum of 5 years of progressive experience in enterprise IT service desk, help desk, or end-user support, including experience as a lead or senior analyst.
• Expert troubleshooting skills across Windows 10/11, Microsoft 365, Active Directory, network connectivity, VPN, printers, mobile devices, and common enterprise applications.
• Extensive experience with an enterprise ITSM platform (e.g., ServiceNow), including reporting, knowledge management, and queue management.
• Demonstrated experience improving First Contact Resolution, SLA adherence, and customer satisfaction through process, knowledge, and coaching initiatives.
• Experience performing ticket quality reviews, mentoring analysts, and delivering training.
• Ability to work assigned shifts within a 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET core schedule, and willingness to work extended-hours shifts if assigned to the extended-hours team.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to brief supervisors and Government stakeholders on performance and trends.

DESIRED SKILLS:

• HDI Support Center Team Lead, HDI Desktop Support Technician, or ITIL 4 Foundation / Practitioner certification.
• Experience using ServiceNow (incident, request, knowledge, CMDB, Service Catalog, Virtual Agent) or a comparable enterprise ITSM platform.
• Experience working across multiple security enclaves (NIPRNet, SIPRNet, JWICS) and with classified system handling procedures.
• Familiarity with customer experience (CX) measurement, including CSAT, Customer Effort Score (CES), and experience level agreements (XLAs).
• Experience supporting Department of War (DoW), DoD, or other compliance-driven Federal IT environments.
• Experience with AI-enabled service desk capabilities (ServiceNow Virtual Agent, AI Ops, predictive analytics) and measuring Tier 0 deflection.
• Experience contributing to Problem Management, Root Cause Analysis, and continuous improvement programs.

About Empower AI

All hiring and promotion decisions at Empower AI are based on merit to bring the best talent available to contribute to our firm’s overall success. It is the policy of Empower AI not to discriminate against any applicant for employment, or employee because of age, color, sex, disability, national origin, race, religion, or veteran status. Empower AI is a VEVRAA Federal Contractor.

The base salary range represents the anticipated low and high end of the salary range for this position. Actual salaries may vary based on various factors including but not limited to work location, skills, experience, gov con contractual requirements, and performance. The range listed is just one component of Empower AI's total compensation package for employees.

Pay Band Min

USD $65,600.00/Yr.

Pay Band Max

USD $101,540.00/Yr.