Technical Operations Manager

Position Summary

Synectics is seeking an experienced Technical Operations Manager to provide day-to-day leadership for technical professionals working at the intersection of environmental science and data management.

This is primarily a people and operations management position, not a senior technical specialist or traditional environmental project manager role. The Technical Services Manager will oversee team performance, workload, accountability, employee development, and operational processes across multiple projects and workstreams.

The successful candidate does not need prior experience with Synectics’ systems or expertise in every discipline they will support. They must be comfortable managing highly skilled professionals, learning complex technical environments, asking good questions, and making management decisions even when others may have greater specialized expertise.

Because our work depends on reliable environmental and technical information, the manager must also understand why data integrity, quality control, traceability, and consistent processes matter.

What You Will Do

• Lead and develop people. Provide day-to-day management, coaching, feedback, and support to technical staff, team leads, and developing supervisors.
• Create clear accountability. Establish expectations, follow up on commitments, address performance concerns promptly, and ensure employees understand who owns decisions and deliverables.
• Manage technical work without needing to be the technical expert. Learn enough about our systems, services, and workflows to set priorities, identify risks, coordinate resources, and know when subject-matter expertise is needed.
• Protect the integrity of our work. Promote reliable processes for data accuracy, completeness, consistency, traceability, validation, and quality control.
• Investigate recurring problems. Determine whether causes involve ownership, training, workload, process, technology, or performance rather than simply correcting individual errors.
• Improve how work gets done. Clarify roles and handoffs, strengthen repeatable processes, and implement practical controls without unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Manage workload and capacity. Identify competing priorities and resource constraints before they affect employees, clients, or deliverables.
• Connect teams and leadership. Coordinate among environmental scientists, data management staff, project managers, and company leadership and provide useful visibility into staffing, performance, workload, and delivery risks.

What Success Looks Like

• Employees know who manages them, what is expected, and where to go for decisions and support.
• Routine personnel, workload, and operational issues are handled at the management level rather than defaulting to company ownership.
• Team leads, supervisors, and emerging leaders receive meaningful coaching and become more effective managers.
• Technical experts can focus on their expertise while operating within clear, reliable processes.
• Errors and discrepancies lead to investigation and improvement rather than repeated correction.
• Leadership has clear visibility into staffing, workload, performance, and operational risks.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.
• Ability to work full-time in Synectics’ Sacramento office.
• Minimum 7 years of professional experience, including at least 3 years of direct people-management experience in a technical, scientific, engineering, consulting, or similarly complex professional environment.
• Experience directly supervising a team of at least 5 professional or technical employees, including responsibility for performance feedback, workload management, employee development, and addressing performance concerns.
• Demonstrated experience managing employees across multiple projects, clients, workstreams, or competing priorities rather than supervising a single project team.
• At least 2 years of experience improving or implementing operational, quality-control, technical, or business processes, with responsibility extending beyond following established procedures.
• Demonstrated experience working with technical or subject-matter experts and making management decisions in areas where others may possess greater specialized expertise.
• Experience using operational information such as workload, schedules, quality metrics, project status, or other performance indicators to identify problems and make management decisions

Preferred Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional experience with 5+ years managing technical or professional staff.
• Experience managing multiple teams, team leads, or supervisors, or helping develop employees into supervisory roles.
• Experience in environmental consulting, environmental or scientific data, engineering, technical consulting, quality management, professional services, or federal government contracting.
• Experience in an organization where data quality, quality assurance, traceability, regulatory compliance, or defensibility of technical information is important to the work product.
• Experience managing technical services in a project-based, client-service organization.

The Person We Are Looking For

The strongest candidate is curious, confident without needing to be the smartest technical person in the room, and comfortable learning unfamiliar systems and technical environments.

They know how to ask the right questions, establish ownership, understand how work is checked, identify why problems keep happening, and determine what needs to change.

We are looking for someone who respects technical expertise and understands that excellent management is its own expertise: helping talented people work together effectively, holding people accountable, developing future leaders, and building systems that produce reliable results.

This role may be a strong fit for an experienced manager from another technical, scientific, engineering, or professional consulting environment. We value the ability to learn our subject matter and systems; we are not limiting the search to candidates who already know them.

Why Join Synectics?

• Leadership Impact: Help shape how our technical teams operate, develop emerging leaders, and strengthen accountability, communication, and day-to-day management across the organization.
• Meaningful Work: Support environmental data and technical services used on projects for the Department of Defense and other federal clients.
• Established Company, Opportunity to Improve: Join a company with decades of environmental consulting experience while helping strengthen team structure, management practices, and operational processes.
• Comprehensive Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance; 401(k) with company match; Paid Time Off; Paid Sick Leave; and 11 paid federal holidays.
• Professional Development: Opportunities for continued leadership development, training, and professional growth.

Compensation

The anticipated salary range for this position is $110,000-$120,000 annually.

Final compensation will be determined based on relevant management experience, scope and complexity of prior responsibilities, experience managing technical or professional staff, demonstrated leadership and operational capabilities, education, certifications, and other qualifications relevant to the position.