At 2U, we are all in on purpose. We are motivated by our mission – to make learning limitless– and connected by our shared passion to deliver world-class higher education at scale. As the parent company of edX, a leading online learning platform, 2U powers thousands of higher education offerings – from free courses to full degrees. Together with our college, university, and corporate partners, we are helping accelerate careers and transform lives.
What We’re Looking For:
The Senior Manager, Infrastructure Communications leads the team responsible for the operational health, administration, and evolution of enterprise communications and contact center technologies, including telephony, SMS/texting, live chat, and related email and productivity capabilities. The role is accountable for ensuring these technologies are reliable, effectively supported, and continuously improved to meet the needs of the internal teams that rely on them for day-to-day operations.
This role combines people leadership, technology operations, service management, vendor management, and cross-functional delivery. The Senior Manager leads a team of technology and operations professionals and owns day-to-day operational decision-making, platform and service health, incident response, stakeholder communications, vendor performance and relationships, and continuous improvement of the team’s processes and support model. The role identifies and implements opportunities to improve efficiency, scalability, service quality, and productivity for both the Infrastructure Communications team and the business functions it supports.
The Senior Manager also leads the Infrastructure Communications team’s participation in complex, cross-functional technology initiatives, including platform pilots, implementations, and migrations. The role partners closely with business stakeholders, Technology Operations, CRM, Engineering, Transformation/Delivery teams, and external technology vendors to manage dependencies, resolve issues, and support successful delivery and adoption. The Senior Manager operates with autonomy over the function’s day-to-day operations and recommends improvements to its technologies and operating model, while partnering with senior leadership on broader decisions related to technology strategy, governance, business processes, organizational ownership, and commercial vendor commitments.
Responsibilities Include, But Are Not Limited To:
- Team & Operational Leadership
- Lead, coach, and develop a team of technology and operations professionals responsible for contact center technologies, establishing clear ownership, accountability, priorities, and performance expectations.
- Exercise independent judgment over day-to-day team operations, workload, intake, and prioritization, balancing platform health, business needs, incidents, project commitments, and available capacity.
- Establish and continuously improve operating processes, documentation, knowledge management, service expectations, and escalation paths to create a scalable and effective operating model.
- Build team capability and reduce unnecessary dependencies through coaching, cross-training, effective delegation, and clear ownership of work.
- Foster a culture of curiosity, accountability, sound judgment, collaboration, concise communication, and continuous improvement.
- Provide performance management, development, and ongoing coaching to team members while ensuring the function has the skills and capabilities required to support evolving technologies and business needs.
- Technology, Service Management & Continuous Improvement
- Oversee the operational health, administration, and effectiveness of enterprise communications and contact center technologies, including telephony, SMS/texting, live chat, and related email and productivity capabilities that support critical day-to-day business operations.
- Make day-to-day operational decisions regarding supported platforms and services, escalating broader technology strategy, governance, business process, or organizational ownership decisions to senior leadership as appropriate.
- Ensure configurations, enhancements, releases, platform changes, and ongoing support activities are effectively planned, coordinated, documented, communicated, and sustained.
- Identify recurring issues, operational risks, inefficiencies, and opportunities for automation or process improvement, using data, service trends, stakeholder feedback, and operational observations to determine priorities and drive resolution.
- Challenge legacy processes and validate assumptions before determining solutions; recommend and implement changes that improve efficiency, scalability, service quality, user experience, and organizational capacity.
- Partner with Technology Operations, Service Operations, and other teams to evaluate support models, clarify ownership, and identify opportunities to streamline or appropriately shift work to improve service delivery and productivity.
- Incident Management & Business Communications
- Lead and coordinate response to incidents (significant or small) affecting supported technologies, exercising judgment to determine appropriate escalation, stakeholder engagement, communication cadence, and follow-through based on business impact and severity.
- Establish and mature consistent incident management and communication practices, including ownership, escalation paths, stakeholder notifications, status updates, resolution communications, and post-incident follow-through.
- Translate complex technical information into concise, actionable business communications tailored to impacted teams and leaders, ensuring stakeholders understand business impact, current status, expected actions, and resolution timelines.
- Ensure proactive awareness of incidents, planned changes, platform impacts, risks, and other information necessary for supported teams to effectively manage their operations.
- Analyze incident and service trends to identify systemic issues and drive improvements to platform stability, processes, vendor performance, or support models.
- Platform Evolution & Cross-Functional Delivery
- Lead the Infrastructure Communications team's participation in complex, cross-functional technology initiatives, including platform evaluations, pilots, migrations, implementations, and modernization efforts.
- Provide operational leadership and subject matter perspective throughout initiative planning and execution, making decisions within the team's scope and identifying risks, dependencies, business impacts, and decisions requiring broader leadership alignment.
- Partner closely with Transformation/Delivery, CRM, Engineering, Technology Operations, and business teams on requirements, implementation planning, readiness, testing, rollout, adoption, and stabilization.
- Lead Infrastructure Communications workstreams associated with the evaluation and pilot of next-generation contact center capabilities and potential future platform migrations.
- Navigate dependencies between communications technologies and interconnected enterprise platforms, ensuring ownership and impacts are understood and issues are proactively addressed.
- Ensure new capabilities transition into sustainable operations with appropriate support models, documentation, knowledge transfer, ownership, stakeholder communications, and business processes in place.
- Stakeholder & Vendor Leadership
- Build trusted relationships with business and technology leaders by proactively communicating platform health, changes, risks, incidents, priorities, and decisions and by ensuring supported technologies effectively enable business operations.
- Partner with leaders across Enrollment, Student Success, Placement, Global Support, and other supported functions to understand operational needs, evaluate issues and opportunities, and influence technology and process improvements.
- Represent Infrastructure Communications in cross-functional and governance forums, primarily engaging stakeholders through the Director level and providing recommendations, operational context, risks, and tradeoffs to inform decision-making.
- Own day-to-day relationships with relevant technology vendors, holding partners accountable for service performance, issue resolution, escalations, and commitments while maintaining awareness of product roadmaps and their potential business impact.
- Exercise judgment in resolving vendor and service issues independently within established parameters and partner with senior leadership on contractual, commercial, and broader strategic vendor decisions.
Things That Should Be In Your Background:
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.
- 8+ years of experience in technology operations, business operations, service delivery, technology transformation/delivery, enterprise applications, contact center technology, or a related field, preferably within a complex, cross-functional environment.
- Demonstrated people leadership or comparable team leadership experience, including coaching and developing others, establishing accountability, managing priorities, and influencing outcomes.
- Experience supporting, delivering, or managing enterprise technology platforms, services, or technology-enabled business operations.
- Working knowledge of technology operations and delivery concepts, including incident management, service operations, change management, and technology implementations.
- Demonstrated ability to quickly learn unfamiliar technologies and understand technical dependencies, integrations, operational impacts, and business implications.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex or technical information into clear, concise, business-oriented language.
- Strong stakeholder management skills and experience partnering across business and technology teams.
- Strong judgment and problem-solving skills, with demonstrated ability to navigate ambiguity, validate assumptions, challenge established ways of working, and drive practical improvements.
- Ability to operate as a player-coach, balancing team leadership with hands-on involvement when needed.
Other Attributes That Will Help You In This Role:
- Experience managing external vendors, including service performance, escalations, and issue resolution.
- Experience with contact center and communications technologies such as Five9, Salesforce, Groove, or comparable platforms.
- Experience with telephony, SMS/texting, live chat, or omnichannel engagement environments.
- Experience with Salesforce and/or integrations between CRM and communications platforms.
- Familiarity with Jira, Slack, or similar enterprise collaboration and work management tools.
- Experience leading technology migrations, platform pilots, implementations, or significant operational rollouts.
- Experience improving technology or business operations through automation, process redesign, or changes to operating/support models.
- Experience working with globally distributed teams or stakeholders.
Benefits & Culture
Our global employee base is a diverse collection of innovators, dreamers, and doers working together to transform lives through higher education. We believe that every employee can advance our shared purpose, and that life at 2U should be fun and meaningful. If you’re excited by the opportunity to provide millions of learners and counting with access to world-class higher education, then join us – and do work that makes a difference.
We offer comprehensive benefits (unique per country) and excellent work/life balance.
Full-time, U.S.benefits include:
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage
- Life insurance, disability, and 401(k) employer match
- Free snacks and drinks in-office
- Generous paid holidays and leave policies, including unlimited PTO
- Additional time off benefits include: volunteer days, parental leave, and a company-wide winter break
The anticipated base salary range for this role is ($135,000 - $145,000), with potential bonus eligibility. Salary offers are made based on the candidate’s qualifications, experience, skills, and education as they directly relate to the requirements of the position, budget for the position and cost of labor in the market in which the candidate will be hired.
2U Diversity and Inclusion Statement
At 2U, we are committed to building and sustaining a culture of belonging, respect, and inclusion. We are proud of the steps we’ve taken to bring together an employee base that embodies diverse walks of life, ideas, genders, ages, races, cultures, sexual orientations, abilities and other unique qualities. We strive to offer a workplace where every employee feels empowered by what makes us different, as well as by how we are alike.
2U is committed to providing reasonable accommodations during our recruitment process. If you need assistance or accommodations, please reach out to us at: recruitingaccommodations@2u.com.
About 2U
2U partners with the world's top universities and companies to develop and deliver education programs that accelerate careers and transform lives. Through partnerships with the world’s leading colleges, universities, and companies, 2U delivers thousands of online programs to millions of learners worldwide on edX, its global learning platform. From executive education and professional credentialing to master’s degree programs and free, open courses, 2U transforms how top institutions deliver workforce-aligned online education, enabling professionals to advance without pausing their careers. Learn more at 2U.com.
The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed by individuals assigned to this position, and are not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required. All employees may be required to perform duties outside of their normal responsibilities from time to time, as needed.
2U is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate against applicants or employees and ensures equal employment opportunity for all persons regardless of their race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, national origin, age, marital status, disability, citizenship, military or veterans’ status, or any other classifications protected by applicable federal, state or local laws. 2U’s equal opportunity policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including but not limited to recruiting, hiring, training, promotion, job benefits and pay.
