Description Job DetailsWe're Salesforce, the Customer Company, inspiring the future of business with AI+Data+CRM. Leading with our core values, we help companies across every industry blaze new trails and connect with customers in a whole new way. We also empower you to be a Trailblazer, too — driving your performance and career growth, charting new paths, and improving the state of the world. If you believe in business as the greatest platform for change and in companies doing well by doing good, you’ve come to the right place.The Escalation Manager role acts as the incident commander to manage critical customer issues by engaging the required resources in a timely manner. The manager handles the issues in a hands-on capacity by balancing authoritative and collaborative operational modes based on the situation.The Manager will build strong relationships with customers, Support teams across all cloud products, Engineering teams (Site Reliability, Customer-Centric Engineering, Technology Communications, and Readiness), CSIRT, Sales, Consulting, QA, Program Management, and Product Management.The successful candidate will have a proven track record of interacting with customers, working with executives, responding to issues and incidents, working hands-on with the team, and handling stress and ambiguity. This role brings an operational focus on prevention, including learning from cases and incidents, and partnering with other teams on initiatives that will reduce or eliminate impact to our customers.Key ResponsibilitiesLead the resolution and ownership of all critical customer issues.Act as the hands-on critical issue manager for all clouds and Sev1 cases, ensuring appropriate team engagement and providing direct assistance.Represent Salesforce on customer bridge calls.Manage incidents to achieve key business targets (CSAT, ESAT, SLAs, resolution time, and project deadlines).Partner with customers to drive operational excellence.Collaborate with GEO and weekend escalation managers for seamless warm handoffs.Consistently drive high internal and external customer satisfaction.Serve as a trusted cross-functional partner (e.g., Infrastructure, Technical Support, Cloud Success, Sales Leadership) to ensure company-wide alignment.Continuously drive excellence in customer service delivery.Lead retrospective meetings to identify and action process improvement opportunities.Experience / Skills RequiredA Bachelor's Degree or equivalent relevant experience is required. Experience will be evaluated based on the role's Values and Behaviors (e.g., extracurricular leadership roles, military experience, volunteer roles, work experience, etc.).5+ years of proven experience in a technical support environment, handling highly complex issues.Experience in Critical Issue Management and Incident Response in a high-growth software or hardware technology organization is preferred.Highly collaborative and respectful; curious, patient, and able to develop strong working relationships across matrixed teams.Exceptional C-level written and verbal communication skills.Deep expertise in leading complex critical incidents and customer escalation management.Strong team player with a customer-centric demeanor, focused on enhancing the customer and partner experience.Focused on quality of service and process development with continuous improvement.Preemptive problem-solver, engaged both strategically and tactically.Strong experience with cloud and infrastructure technology and delivery.An understanding of Salesforce product offerings is highly desirable.Demonstrated operational rigor and effective project management skills; able to lead cross-functional collaboration to achieve results.Strong customer-facing experience, bridge call management, and Incident Command expertise.Self-motivated, takes initiative, assumes ownership, and manages programs with minimal direction.Proven ability to collaborate cross-functionally with diverse regional teams to successfully lead and implement process improvement initiatives that measurably enhance operational efficiency.Ability to deliver operational reports that provide qualitative and quantitative analysis of business performance.Specific SkillsFamiliarity with incident management frameworks (ITIL, NIMS, NIST, SANS, etc.).Operates with a high level of operational urgency while maintaining composure and working closely with a team and partners during a critical situation.Ability to lead and drive resolution remotely as an incident commander with excellent executive communications and cross-functional collaboration.Must have expertise in handling enterprise-level issues, including leading, prioritizing, and delegating multiple critical issues simultaneously.Flexibility, integrity, and creative problem-solving skills are prerequisites for success in this role.Must be technically articulate and able to explain technical issues in a way relevant to both engineers and executive management. Deep technical knowledge of multi-tenant, cloud systems, and highly complex infrastructure is highly desirable.Influential team player who builds and maintains strong, productive cross-organizational relationships to achieve business objectives.Excellent project management skills, including the ability to influence other teams to lead projects.