Operations Lead (Customer Support)

About the role The Support team is the heart of Thatch – the people who help members navigate their benefits when it matters, assist employers in administering benefits, and partner with brokers to serve their books of business. Support is where our mission to build a healthcare system people love is delivered, one interaction at a time. As Support Lead, you'll own daily execution of our support function across members, employers, and brokers, and the long game of scaling it. You'll coach and develop a team of specialists, stand up new support channels, and prepare the team for Open Enrollment, our highest-stakes period of the year. You'll be the operational and cultural backbone of the team: managing escalations, jumping into the queue when it counts, partnering across the company to fix the upstream issues that drive support volume, and building an uplifting team culture. This is a role for leaders who find genuine satisfaction in frontline support, coaching people into their next chapter, and the gritty, behind-the-scenes work required to deliver a best-in-class support experience at scale. What you'll do Own daily execution of the support queue – oversee day-to-day operation of the support queue across channels, meeting SLAs and delivering best-in-class support to members, employers, and brokers as we scale. Adapt quickly when volume spikes, incidents emerge, or new issue patterns surface. Scale the support function – stand up new support models like phone support, train and uplevel specialists into functional experts, and drive efficiency through AI, automation, tooling, and cross-functional partnership so the team can absorb growth without scaling headcount linearly. Own planning and execution of seasonal staffing to handle OEP volume. Coach and develop your team – run 1:1s, invest in specialists' careers, grow the next generation of support leaders at Thatch, and deliver direct, timely feedback on quality and performance. Drive cross-functional impact on the customer experience – partner with teams across Thatch to highlight and tackle customer and support team pain points, and surface opportunities to build a better product experience that reduces inbound support volume and addresses operational inefficiencies and gaps. Cultivate a culture that drives the team and company forward – build a supportive, collaborative environment, recognize hard work and difficult moments, and make the team's contributions visible across the company. Own escalations end-to-end – serve as the escalation point for customer issues and incidents, see problems through to resolution, and convert insights from escalations into product, process, and tooling improvements that prevent recurrence. Stay connected to customer needs and the frontline – own escalations and jump into team queues to get things done. Take on difficult cases and operational work that keeps you well-versed on the customer experience and state of support, and helps you see where the next investment in product, process, and tooling should land. Background we're looking for Minimum 7 years of relevant experience, including 3+ years as a people manager. Minimum 3 years of experience in a customer-facing support role supporting a complex benefits, healthcare, or finance product. Experience managing high-volume, seasonal support queues across live channels (phone, email, chat). Unshakeable empathy and dedication to solving the hairiest customer problems. Proven ability to deliver tailored coaching that closes performance gaps and grows specialists into future leaders. You know how to bring out the best in the people around you and foster a culture of accountability. Extreme detail-orientedness. No minor change, inconsistency, or error gets past you. Comfort leading teams through fast-paced change (new tools, new processes, new ways of working) with a relentlessly optimistic mindset. Track record of turning frontline insight into product and process change — you've partnered closel