Operate Service Manager

Summary

Apto Operate is our managed service for telemetry, security, and observability platform management — and it is growing. The Operate Service Manager owns the service itself: the quality and consistency of delivery across every customer account, the performance and development of our engineering team, and the continuous improvement of how Apto delivers.

This is not a pure operations role and it is not a pure management role. You will be close enough to the technical work to understand what the data is telling you, senior enough to influence how the business operates, and systematic enough to turn what you see into improvements that stick. You sit alongside our Technical Account Managers (who own the customer relationship) and Solution Architects (who own technical direction) — you own delivery.

What you'll Do

• Run the daily service.Review across all accounts every day — volumes, ageing, SLA status — spotting patterns as well as problems.
• Own SLA performance.Monitor, measure, and act on service quality across the portfolio so standards are consistent regardless of engineer or account.
• Lead the engineering team.Line-manage our engineers: one-to-ones, development plans, specific feedback, and performance management where needed.
• Manage capacity forward.Track utilisation, plan for new contracts entering delivery, and surface headcount or skills gaps to leadership before they bite.
• Handle escalations.Act as the first internal escalation point when delivery is under pressure — triage quickly, communicate clearly, drive to resolution.
• Surface intelligence.Turn what you see across the customer base into insight that shapes account decisions and the evolution of the service.
• Improve how we work. Own and sharpen our delivery processes — making Apto measurably better at operating platforms year on year.

Who you are

• You have managed a live service across multiple concurrent customers — ideally in an MSP or recurring-delivery environment — and you know the daily discipline that takes.
• You have line-managed a technical team for real: one-to-ones, development plans, and the difficult conversations, not just informal mentoring.
• You think in patterns. You can look at ticket volumes, SLA trends, and utilisation data and see what it's telling you — and you've acted on it, not just reported it.
• You have designed and landed practical process improvements in a busy delivery environment, and you can show they held.
• You stay clear-headed under pressure, communicate precisely across levels — engineers to executives — and give leadership the real picture, not the sanitised one.
• You are comfortable in a technical environment. You do not need to be an engineer, but you can read a service board, understand what a platform team is telling you, and assess whether the quality of work is good.

Process & Governance You'll Own

• Service governance. SLA monitoring and reporting, fair-use oversight, and regular service performance reporting to leadership.
• Delivery transparency. Boards that are honest and current, burndowns that reflect reality, outcomes written in language the customer and the business can act on.
• Escalation and incident process. A clear, disciplined route from problem to resolution — grounded in ITIL principles — with the right people informed at the right time.
• Operating cadence. The daily service review, capacity and utilisation reviews, and quarterly engineer development cycles that keep the service and the team on track.
• Continuous improvement.Delivery standards that are documented, followed, reviewed, and improved — with changes captured and shared, not held in one person's head.

Apto Solutions is a UK consultancy on an ambitious growth journey, and Operate is at the centre of it. This role has genuine reach: you will shape how a scaling managed service business delivers, build the team that delivers it, and see the impact of your judgement every day.

You will work directly with the leadership team and have a real voice in how the service evolves. We are a small business with serious customers and high standards — and if running something well matters to you, you will find this a place where that is valued.