KNOWLEDGE CENTER TEAM LEAD

About this role

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
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…