Incident Response Manager

Incident Response Manager Location Requirements: This position is Hybrid to Wayne or Naperville. Remote candidates will be considered. The role will work hours based on the Eastern Time Zone. Must be comfortable being “on-call” or available for incidents outside standard business hours (rotations possible).How You’ll Contribute to Our Mission As the Incident Response Manager, you will own the full lifecycle of incidents raised internally and by clients — from escalation through resolution and post-mortem. You’ll monitor client issues proactively, coordinate cross-functional teams (Support, Engineering, Product, Operations, CSMs, QA, etc.), and ensure clear communication to stakeholders internally and externally. You will document incident progress, lead root-cause analyses, drive follow-up action items, and continuously improve incident response practices and tooling.Your mission is to reduce downtime, minimize client impact, and foster trust through clear, transparent, and well-coordinated management of critical incidents. You will own the tracking of incident SLAs, identify recurring trends, and drive preventative actions to ensure issues don’t happen again. Success in this role requires strong attention to detail and the ability to anticipate needs that help shorten incident duration, accelerate resolution, and improve customer communication throughout the process.How You’ll Drive SuccessIncident OwnershipServe as Incident Commander or Lead during high-severity client-facing incidents, owning coordination and decision-making.Triage, classify, prioritize incoming escalations; assess impact and urgency.Facilitate incident or real-time response sessions, ensuring rapid alignment across teams.Drive remediation efforts, track progress, escalate or reallocate resources if blocked.Available after hours to coordinate and resolve critical incidents.Stakeholder Communication & ReportingProvide regular updates (status, ETA, impact) to internal leadership, clients (as needed), and other stakeholders.Active participant in post-incident reviews and present findings, lessons learned, and action plans.Document incident timelines, decisions, root causes, and resolutions in a clear, accessible format.Process, Tools & GovernanceDevelop and maintain incident response playbooks, runbooks, escalation paths, communication templates, roles & responsibilities.Define, monitor, and report on incident metrics and KPIs (e.g. Mean Time to Detect, Mean Time to Resolve, Customer Impact Hours, recurrence rate).Run tabletop drills or simulated incidents to validate readiness and process effectiveness.Continuously iterate on response processes, tooling, and automation to reduce friction and response latency.Cross-functional CollaborationPartner with Support, Engineering, Product, QA, DevOps, and IT teams to understand system dependencies, root causes, and mitigation strategies.Ensure post-incident actions are completed and recurrence risks are eliminated.Liaise with client success, sales, and communications teams for messaging to customers.Work with legal, security, and compliance as needed for escalations involving data, privacy, or contract terms.What You Bring to Help Us GrowOwnership mentality and accountabilityCalm under pressure, decisive judgmentEmpathy and strong client focus — you understand how incidents affect customer businessCollaborative mindset — you bring people together, not push themContinuous improvement orientationAbility to facilitate post incident reviews, drive consensus, and lead meetings under stressTransparency and most importantly — the integrity to communicate honestly, even when things are difficultWhat You’ll Need to Thrive 5+ years’ experience in a technical support, site reliability, operations, or incident management role in a SaaS or high-availability environmentProven track record leading major/severity-1 incidents, coordinating across functionsStrong communicator: able to translate highly technical issues for executives, clients, and cross-functional teamsExcellent analytical problem-solving skills; comfortable with ambiguity and working under pressureSolid understanding of architectures (cloud, microservices, APIs, networks), and ability to reason about failuresFamiliarity with incident tools / platforms (PagerDuty, Opsgenie, Statuspage, Slack, ticketing systems)Must be comfortable being “on-call” or available for incidents outside standard business hours (rotations possible)Experience conducting post incident analyses, RCA, creating follow-up action plansExperience in SaaS, fintech, or enterprise software domainExperience with data / monitoring / observability tools (e.g. Datadog, Splunk, Prometheus, Grafana)Experience with scripting, automation, or tooling to assist incident responseCertifications: ITIL, SRE, or security incident response credentialsExposure to security, compliance, privacy incident managementOur Mission, Our People, Our Purpose At Frontline Education, we’re reimagining what’s possible by becoming an AI-first organization, transforming how we think, work, and serve the educators who shape our schools every day. By using AI in thoughtful, practical ways, we’re creating tools that help educators save time, gain insights, and focus more on what matters most — their students.As part of our team, you’ll be expected and empowered to build and apply AI skillsets that grow with you, because at Frontline Education, technology amplifies what matters most: the human drive to learn, improve, and make a difference.How We Support Growth, Balance, and Well-Being Personalized Time Off: Take time when it’s needed most — whether that’s a family vacation, a reset day, or simply time to rest and refocus.Paid Sick Time: Separate, dedicated sick leave to care for yourself or loved ones.Volunteer Time Off: Paid time to give back and support causes that matter to you.Ten Paid Holidays: Enjoy meaningful moments and traditions throughout the year.Our Philosophy: We believe time away from work helps you bring your best self to it.Continuous Learning and GrowthWorld-Class Learning Access: Explore thousands of on-demand courses through platforms like LinkedIn Learning.Leadership & Technical Skill Building: Develop new capabilities and chart your own professional path.AI Empowerment: Use OpenAI tools to build fluency with emerging technology and harness AI as a creative partner for innovation and problem-solving.Tuition Reimbursement: Invest in formal education to advance your skills and career.Ongoing Learning Culture: Participate in company-led webinars on AI, inclusion, and industry trends—designed to inspire curiosity and continuous improvement.Health, Happiness, and Purpose Wellness Initiatives: Company-sponsored programs that support physical, mental, and emotional well-being.Employee Assistance Program (EAP): Confidential support for you and your family’s needs.Comprehensive Benefits: Health and financial benefits that support your happiness and future.A Culture That Cares: At Frontline Education, we want every team member to learn, grow, and thrive—personally, professionally, and purposefully.Compensation & BenefitsSalary Range $110-$120K: Competitive and commensurate with experience, skills, and internal equity. Bonus eligibility, 401(k) match, ESPP, comprehensive health benefits, and personalized PTO.Inclusion, Belonging & Equal Opportunity Frontline Education is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. We aspire to have an inclusive workplace and strongly encourage suitably qualified applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply and join our team.Interview Process & Data Privacy As part of our interview process, Frontline uses video conferencing tools that include photo capture and may include automated transcription features. A screenshot or photo will be taken at the start of the interview for internal identification and record-keeping purposes only, and transcription may be used to support notetaking and evaluation consistency. These materials are used solely by our recruiting and hiring teams, stored securely, and not shared outside the hiring process. Candidates may opt out of the transcription at any time by notifying their recruiter in advance. Frontline processes this information in accordance with applicable data privacy laws and only for legitimate business purposes related to recruitment and hiring.Our Privacy Policy: Your privacy is important to us. Click here to read our general Privacy Statement and click here to read our Applicant Privacy Statement.