Customer Support Operations Manager

Deblock is a regulated fintech building an account that puts people back in control of their money: a current account and a self-custody crypto wallet in one app.

We are looking for a Senior Customer Support Operations Manager to own scaling and process optimisation initiatives in our customer support division end to end. Our customer base is growing fast, the contact volume grows with it, and the operation now needs someone who can turn day-to-day firefighting into a machine that scales, without losing the quality of experience our customers came to us for.

This is a build role. You will integrate a working team and a real operation, and the job is to help give it structure: coverage models that hold, SLAs that are met, a QA framework people trust, reporting the executive team can act on, and a clear path from a spike in tickets to a fix in the product.

What you will work on:

• The support operation, end to end: staffing, scheduling, workflows, tooling and daily delivery across chat, email and in-app channels.
• The operating model: SLAs, KPI definitions, escalation paths, macro and response libraries, the Help Centre, and shift coverage that matches demand rather than habit.
• The team: hiring, ramp-up, coaching and performance management for agents and team leads, with career paths people can actually see.
• Quality and customer experience: CSAT and DSAT, QA scoring and calibration, root-cause analysis on contact drivers, and complaint handling that meets regulatory expectations.
• Operational efficiency: forecast accuracy, handling time, cost per contact, deflection and self-service, and the sensible use of automation and AI-assisted handling.
• Cross-functional impact: working with FinCrime, Product, Engineering and Risk so that what support learns every day turns into product fixes and control improvements.
• Reporting: weekly and monthly performance reporting that is honest about what is working and what is not.

Requirements

We're looking for someone who has built something before, and knows the difference between maintaining an operation and creating one. You are comfortable walking into a function that is part structure and part improvisation, and you are energised rather than discouraged by that.

• You bring order to chaos. You see the pattern behind a hundred scattered tickets and turn it into a process, a rule, or a fix.
• You are hands-on. You will jump into the queue on a bad day, sit with an agent on a hard case, and rewrite the macro yourself, and you are equally comfortable presenting the numbers to the executive committee.
• You lead from the front. You set high standards, give direct feedback, and grow people rather than just managing them.
• You think in data. You do not argue from anecdote when a number is available, and you build the reporting you need if it does not exist.
• You care about the customer experience as a matter of craft, not of metric, but you can prove it with the metric.
• You are calm under pressure. Incidents, outages and bad weeks do not rattle you; they make you methodical.
• You are comfortable with ambiguity and with the pace and constraints of a scaling, regulated business.

Essential

• 5+ years in customer support or service operations, including at least 2 years leading teams, especially other managers
• A proven track record of building or scaling a support function: structures, processes, SLAs and quality frameworks created from scratch or taken through a step change. Be ready to talk us through what you found, what you changed and what it delivered.
• Strong command of support KPIs and workforce management: forecasting, capacity planning, scheduling, shrinkage, occupancy and adherence.
• Hands-on with support tooling and data: Intercom, Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud or equivalent, and confident in spreadsheets and reporting tools. SQL is a strong plus.
• Experience designing and running a QA or quality assurance framework, and coaching a team against it.
• Experience managing high-volume consumer support, including extended-hours or 24/7 coverage models.
• Fluent English is critical
• Based in Porto, or close by

Nice to have

• Experience in fintech, banking, payments or crypto, or in another regulated environment.
• Exposure to complaint handling, regulatory turnaround times, or working alongside compliance and financial crime teams.
• Experience introducing automation or AI into a support workflow, and the judgement to know where it does not belong.
• French speaker

Benefits

• Competitive salary you'll be happy with
• Equity as stock options when you join
• Private health insurance
• Meal allowance, paid via meal card
• 30 days of annual leave, plus public holidays
• A Deblock account and card, and a front-row seat to a regulated fintech being built properly
• A team that actually gets to decide how the function works, including you