Director, Product Management

Job Description

What youll be doing

Zendesks Support Core organization is evolving into a modern platform and shared-experience team that enables product teams to move faster integrate more easily and deliver consistent AI-forward capabilities at scale.

As Director of Product for Support Core you will define and lead the strategy for Zendesks foundational support systems including Ticketing Platform Search Platform Email and Lists owning both the underlying platform capabilities and the shared product experiences built on top of them.

You will ensure that our core systems provide:

• A single scalable integration surface for all Zendesk products including newly acquired products

• Consistent high-quality experiences across the Zendesk ecosystem

• Modern AI-ready components that accelerate product innovation

• Reduced developer overhead through composable well-abstracted platform services

You will lead a team of five product managers and partner deeply with Engineering leadership to modernize our architecture elevate developer experience and embed AI capabilities throughout the core.

Why this role matters

Support Core is foundational to Zendesks future. As Zendesk continues to expand its product portfolio and embed AI throughout the customer experience the strength consistency and intelligence of our core systems will determine how quickly we can innovate and how seamlessly our products work together.

Responsibilities

• Define and communicate the multi-year vision and roadmap for Support Core as both a platform and shared product experience layer

• Transform core systems into AI-forward composable components that power consistent experiences across Zendesk

• Own both:

  • Platform capabilities (APIs services infrastructure integration interfaces)

• Design a modern AI-native engineering experience by designing platform abstractions and integration surfaces that enable fast and scalable integration with all Zendesk products including acquisitions

• Drive AI-native platform capabilities across Support Core ensuring our systems are architected so AI operates seamlessly on top of them within them and alongside them

• Lead and develop a team of five product managers across Ticketing Search Email and Lists

• Partner closely with Engineering to modernize system architecture improve reliability and performance and reduce complexity

• Influence the broader Core Services platform strategy and align investments with company-level goals

• Establish outcome-driven planning strong execution discipline and clear executive communication

What you bring to the role

• Experience leading platform or infrastructure product teams in high-scale SaaS environments

• Experience owning both platform capabilities and shared product experiences

• Strong technical fluency - comfortable engaging deeply in distributed systems APIs search/retrieval architecture cloud-native systems and integration patterns

• Demonstrated experience building or enabling AI-powered systems (LLM integration search and retrieval ML-backed features AI infrastructure or developer tooling)

• Strong understanding of modern AI-native development patterns and AI-assisted engineering workflows

• Experience designing systems that serve as a shared foundation across multiple products or business units

• Proven ability to lead and scale senior product managers

• Strong strategic thinking combined with operational rigor

• Exceptional communication and executive influence skills

• High ownership mindset and ability to drive clarity in complex ambiguous environments

Preferred Experience

• Engineering background or early-career technical experience

• Experience integrating acquired products into a shared platform architecture

• Experience leading distributed teams across geographies

The intelligent heart of customer experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working enables us to purposefully come together in person at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world to connect collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer and were proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity equity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race color religion national origin age sex gender gender identity gender expression sexual orientation marital status medical condition ancestry disability military or veteran status or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law please click here.

Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application complete any pre-employment testing or otherwise participate in the employee selection process please send an e-mail to with your specific accommodation request.