Job Summary & Responsibilities

Position Summary

The Senior Service Manager owns 4D Technology’s global field service operation, leading the Field Service Engineers (FSEs) who install, calibrate, troubleshoot, and repair laser interferometry instruments at customer sites worldwide. This is a player-coach role: the Senior Service Manager runs the team day-to-day, drives the service business (contracts, spares, pricing, escalations), and remains hands-on with the products — backstopping FSEs on complex escalations and personally covering territory when coverage is tight.

The Senior Service Manager is the lead service voice in cross-functional product, engineering, and shipment meetings, and the customer’s primary escalation point for technical issues in the field. The role partners closely with Manufacturing, Engineering, and Quality, and coordinates closely with Sales on service contracts and renewals.

Key Responsibilities

Service Organization Leadership

• Lead, hire, and develop a global team of Field Service Engineers (FSEs) covering Americas, EMEA, and Asia.

• Set FSE training schedules, performance reviews, compensation recommendations, and territory coverage.

• Coordinate FSE technical training timed to production builds so new instruments are field-supportable from day one.

• Manage service priorities, schedule, and territory backup coverage across time zones.

• Backstop FSEs on complex customer escalations; perform FSE duties when coverage requires.

Customer Service & Escalations

• Serve as the primary technical escalation point for service and field-troubleshooting issues that exceed FSE first-line support; route formal quality complaints, audit responses, and regulatory inquiries to the Quality Manager.

• Manage service-related customer escalation interactions; communicate timelines, recovery plans, and final resolution; co-own customer communication with the Quality Manager when issues cross into formal quality investigation.

• Own customer-facing service communication: phone coverage, voicemail routing, and response SLAs.

• Track customer satisfaction across the service base; identify recurring issues and account-level risk.

Service Business Operations

• Draft and maintain service contracts (new and renewals); align pricing with product, contract terms, and service-level commitments.

• Approve service repair quotes and maintain the service pricelist.

• Manage service inventory and spares planning, including last-time-buy decisions on long-lead optical and electronic components.

• Maintain calibrated tooling for service operations and ensure traceability to standards.

• Manage shipping requirements with customers (RMA, advance replacements, spares dispatch).

• Maintain Device History Records for serviced instruments and Out-of-Box Quality (OBQ) reports for senior staff and product management.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Track field issue trends and escalate systemic issues to Product Management and Engineering at the bi-weekly product meeting.

• Participate in the Engineering Change (EC) implementation meeting; plan for service impact and last-time-buy decisions on changing components.

• Attend the weekly senior staff meeting to communicate service needs, customer escalations, and field intelligence.

• Attend the weekly shipments meeting to communicate service shipment timelines and quarter projections.

• Partner with the Senior Manufacturing Manager on field issues that originate in production.

• Hand off formal quality complaints, customer quality questionnaires, and CAPA-eligible field issues to the Quality Manager for investigation; co-own customer communication during resolution.

• Support Engineering on EC reviews and product-update rollouts where service impact is material.

Continuous Improvement

• Drive service-process improvements, knowledge-base development, and FSE productivity.

• Build escalation playbooks and troubleshooting documentation that reduce time-to-resolution.

• Improve calibration procedures and traceability standards in coordination with Quality.

Key Performance Indicators

• Service revenue and contract renewal rate.

• Time to resolution on customer escalations.

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) for service interactions.

• FSE utilization and territory coverage.

• Service spares inventory turns and stock-out rate.

• On-time response to customer service requests.

• Field issue trend cadence — recurring issues identified, documented, and routed to Engineering.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Optical, Electrical, Mechanical) or Physics, or equivalent technical experience and a demonstrated track record of FSE / service leadership.

Experience

• 7–10 years in field service of precision instruments, with at least 3 years managing a distributed FSE team.

• Hands-on experience installing, calibrating, and troubleshooting optical metrology instruments — laser interferometry experience strongly preferred.

• Experience setting and managing service contracts, spares planning, and service pricing.

• Demonstrated comfort working with FSEs and customers across multiple time zones and regions.

Skills & Competencies

• Deep technical depth on the products being serviced; comfortable on-tool with hand tools, optical alignment fixtures, and instrumentation.

• Strong customer-facing communication; able to manage tense escalations and represent the company in front of senior customer technical staff.

• Service business operations: contracts, pricelists, quote approval, RMA management, last-time-buy planning.

• Coaching and team development; experience building FSE skill and product depth through structured training.

• Cross-functional collaboration with Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, and Sales; able to push back constructively when service realities require it.

• Comfort operating in an ISO 9001-style Quality Management System with traceability requirements for service operations.

• Adherence to company ethics, customer-confidentiality, and gifts/conflict-of-interest policies in all customer and vendor interactions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience with laser interferometry products or comparable precision optical metrology instruments.

• Field service experience in semiconductor, defense, aerospace, or research-instrumentation customer accounts.

• Familiarity with Oracle ERP or comparable system for service transactions, parts, and contract management.

• Lean Service Operations or Six Sigma training.

Working Conditions

• Tucson, AZ-based, on-site at the manufacturing facility for daily presence with Engineering, Manufacturing, and Quality.

• International travel up to 25–35% for FSE training, customer escalations, key installs, and corporate visits to Milpitas.

• Standard business hours with flexibility for international time-zone calls and customer-emergency response, including occasional after-hours coverage.

• Physical demands include occasional lifting up to 25 lbs and on-tool work with hand tools and optical alignment fixtures.

Compensation & Growth

• Base Salary Range:

$103,360.00 - $155,040.00, offered in good faith and based on experience, location, and qualifications.

• Additional Rewards: Annual bonus opportunities and potential long-term incentives tied to both company and individual success.