IT Lead, Service Desk Operations

Overview

Certara accelerates the potential of bringing medicines to market and to patients using biosimulation software, technology, and services to transform traditional drug discovery and development. Our clients include more than 2,400 biopharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, and regulatory agencies across 70 countries.

Our goal is to enable the life sciences industry’s use of data, modeling, and analytics to make better decisions across the various phases of discovery and drug development. Our software and scientists incorporate modern advances in scientific understanding, drug development experience, data analysis, and AI resulting in significant opportunities to decrease the cost and increase the probability of success for new drug approval and commercialization.

As a Service Desk Team Lead at Certara, you play a critical leadership role within a global, fast-paced IT organization whose mission is to deliver capable, resilient, and world-class IT services to professional services, software, and corporate business teams. Your work ensures Certara team members have the tools, access, and support required to operate at the highest level in service of our customers.

The Information Technology function at Certara relies on experience, sound judgment, and best-practice methodologies to plan, execute, and continuously improve service delivery. The Service Desk Team Lead supports the day-to-day management, operational excellence, and strategic alignment of Service Desk operations, working closely with IT leadership, cross-functional technology teams, and business stakeholders.

This role requires a strong understanding of services and software organizations, as well as internal corporate functions. While this is a leadership position, the successful candidate is expected to be hands-on, capable of taking ownership of issues, and comfortable collaborating across teams to drive timely, high-quality outcomes.

Responsibilities

Service Desk Operations & Daily Management

• Monitor Service Desk queues to ensure timely intake, assignment, progression, and resolution of tickets.
• Maintain operational visibility across the Hungary L2 queue and balance workload, priorities, and coverage across the team.
• Ensure adherence to defined ticket standards, processes, documentation requirements, and service expectations.
• Act as the management and technical escalation point for complex issues and service challenges.
• Ensure clear, timely communication during incidents, outages, escalations, and planned roll-outs.

Hungary L2 Team Leadership & People Management

• Serve as the day-to-day people leader for the L2 Service Desk team based in Hungary, providing direct operational leadership, guidance, and oversight.
• Manage team performance, workload, priorities, coverage, and resource allocation to ensure consistent delivery of Service Desk services.
• Establish clear performance expectations and hold team members accountable for service quality, responsiveness, documentation, customer experience, and adherence to established processes.
• Conduct regular one-on-one meetings with team members to review performance, workload, development objectives, challenges, and opportunities for improvement.
• Provide ongoing coaching, mentoring, and actionable feedback to strengthen technical capability, customer service, ownership, and professional development.
• Participate in formal performance management activities, including goal setting, performance reviews, development planning, recognition, and corrective performance discussions as appropriate.
• Identify individual and team training needs and establish development plans that improve technical capability, operational maturity, and career progression.
• Support employee onboarding, training, knowledge transfer, and integration of new Service Desk team members.
• Coordinate team schedules, availability, planned leave, and operational coverage to maintain appropriate support levels for Hungary, EMEA, and the broader global organization.
• Act as the first management escalation point for L2 Service Desk operational issues, employee concerns, workload challenges, and service-delivery risks.
• Partner with IT leadership on staffing requirements, organizational planning, recruitment, employee development, and succession planning.
• Promote a culture of accountability, ownership, collaboration, professionalism, and continuous improvement.

Process Enforcement & Continuous Improvement

• Enforce established ITSM processes, workflows, and governance standards.
• Identify operational gaps, inefficiencies, and recurring issues within Service Desk operations.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives focused on quality, efficiency, customer experience, and team maturity.
• Maintain consistency in service delivery, documentation, knowledge management, and audit readiness.

Stakeholder Engagement & Communication

• Ensure consistent, transparent communication with stakeholders.
• Identify and escalate service trends, risks, capacity constraints, and systemic concerns.
• Provide clear updates on Service Desk performance, team capacity, initiatives, employee-development needs, and improvement efforts.
• Ensure the Hungary L2 team operates consistently with global Service Desk standards while addressing regional operational requirements.

Reporting & Data-Driven Management

• Track and analyze key Service Desk metrics, including SLAs, ticket volume, backlog, aging, escalations, workload distribution, and quality.
• Use operational data to manage team performance and identify areas requiring intervention, coaching, or improvement.
• Identify operational trends, risks, capacity concerns, and improvement opportunities.
• Use data and insights to drive informed decision-making, prioritization, and resource planning.

Vendor & Asset Management Support

• Manage relationships with hardware and software vendors supporting Service Desk initiatives.
• Coordinate procurement activities for hardware and software as required.
• Ensure alignment with organizational standards and lifecycle expectations.
• Oversee hardware request processes, including onboarding, replacements, and incident-related needs.
• Partner with internal teams on renewals, lifecycle management, and asset optimization.

Management Accountability

• Be accountable for the performance and development of the Hungary L2 team as a whole, not solely for individual technical output.
• Manage team performance against service expectations, including SLA attainment, backlog and ticket aging, escalation handling, documentation quality, customer experience, process adherence, and audit readiness.
• Build team resilience through cross-training, knowledge development, succession planning, and appropriate operational coverage.
• Escalate material performance, capacity, staffing, service, or operational risks to IT leadership with clear recommendations and follow-through.

Role Characteristics

• Process-driven, metrics-oriented, and customer-focused
• Clear, confident communicator across technical and non-technical audiences
• Strong operational focus with the ability to think strategically
• Able to address performance concerns constructively and make timely management decisions
• Comfortable balancing formal management responsibilities with hands-on technical leadership
• Demonstrated people-leadership mindset with accountability for team outcomes, employee development, and service performance

Qualifications

• 5+ years of IT experience with progressive responsibility
• 2+ years of direct people-management or formal team-leadership experience within a Service Desk, Service Delivery, or IT Operations function
• Strong understanding of IT service management principles (ITIL or equivalent experience preferred)
• Demonstrated experience managing ticket queues, SLAs, and operational performance
• Experience enforcing documentation and process standards within a ticketing system (e.g., Jira, ServiceNow)
• Proven ability to coach employees, conduct performance conversations, set expectations, manage performance, and support professional development
• Demonstrated experience managing team workload, staffing coverage, priorities, escalations, and operational accountability
• Strong communication skills with the ability to engage both technical teams and business stakeholders
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, evolving environment
• Experience working in regulated or compliance-driven environments (e.g., SOX, ISO) preferred

Location: Budapest, Váci Greens Office Park

Certara bases all employment-related decision on merit, taking into consideration qualifications, skills, achievement, and performance. We treat all applicants and employees without regard to personal characteristics such as race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, nationality, marital status, pregnancy, physical or mental condition, genetic information, military service, or other characteristic protected by law.