Senior Manager - Customer Experience, APAC

Location: Auckland Workplace: OnSite ABOUT HALTER At Halter, we’re on a mission to enable farmers and graziers to run the most productive and sustainable operations. Our customers are using Halter to break free from the time-intensive constraints of conventional practices. Imagine watching 500 cattle stand up and walk calmly towards their next break? No quad bikes, no dogs, no fences. Just a group of cattle walking at their own pace. People say it looks like magic. Our customers are revolutionizing grazing with Halter. It's changing lives and transforming an industry. People join Halter to do meaningful work. By joining us you’ll be solving challenging problems within a talented team and a culture built for high performance. Our team out-think, out-work and out-care. We’re committed to delivering real change in the world - this isn’t easy, and in truth, we love that it’s hard. We’re backed to deliver on a mission that matters by Tier 1 investors including Founders Fund https://foundersfund.com, Bessemer Venture Partners https://www.bvp.com/, BOND, https://www.bondcap.com/ DCVC https://www.dcvc.com/, Blackbird https://www.blackbird.vc/, Promus Ventures https://www.promusventures.com/, Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck and Icehouse ventures https://www.icehouseventures.co.nz/?utm_term=icehouse%20ventures&utm_campaign=Brand+Keywords&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=4064636360&hsa_cam=16902737884&hsa_grp=134004309485&hsa_ad=592971340272&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-1082530126230&hsa_kw=icehouse%20ventures&hsa_mt=b&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2v-gBhC1ARIsAOQdKY0J0DepRVFDmjQlAkJPbZuQnLSA5UVzUzOXYiPxkjX-SeVa513_BhkaAr-MEALw_wcB. To find out more, visit our LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/halter-limited & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifeathalter/.   About the role   When a farmer gets in touch at 3am because a herd needs moving or a virtual fence isn’t holding, they need someone who understands what’s at stake and can get them to a fix. You’ll lead the teams that make that happen. We’re looking for a Senior Manager to lead Customer Experience across APAC. Based at our Customer Experience centre of excellence in Auckland, you’ll lead a growing team of 40+ Support Specialists through five leaders, including our Customer Experience Shift Leads and an Enterprise Customer Experience Lead you’ll hire. You’ll lead two teams: - Tier 2 is our 24/7 human support team. It primarily supports APAC and covers the US and South America when their local teams are offline. AI handles Tier 1, so the issues that reach your team are often more complex and technical. You’ll build the team’s confidence and capability to diagnose and resolve more of those issues directly. - Enterprise is a new team you’ll build with the lead you hire. Together, you’ll design how we support our largest and most complex customers, from onboarding and regular health checks to spotting risk early and getting expert help to customers when something goes wrong.   You’ll co-own APAC Customer Experience strategy with regional and Customer leadership and turn it into a 6 to 12 month roadmap and operating plan. You’ll make the calls on priorities, team structure, staffing and ways of working, and own the results across customer satisfaction, response and resolution times, quality, escalations and cost to serve. You’ll work with Field, Technical Support, Product, Engineering and AI to make the whole support experience work better. You’ll spend time with farmers and ranchers on farm, at events and at our R&D farm, then bring what you learn back into how we support customers and what we build next.   What your day could look like - Defining what an epic customer experience looks like at Halter, then building the standards, coaching and habits that make it happen on every shift. - Co-owning APAC Customer Experience strategy and turning it into a clear 6 to 12 month roadmap. - Coaching your Shift Leads to run high-performing teams, setting clear expectations, and holding the bar across every shift. - Hiring the Enterprise Lead, then designing and building the Enterprise support model and team with them. - Making sure everyone gets a world-class experience, whether they're an APAC customer or another region you're covering out-of-hours. - Jumping on the complex, high-impact, or high-risk stuff, and using those moments to coach the team. - Building Tier 2’s technical capability so more complex issues are resolved quickly and independently. - Owning coverage, rostering and capacity so the 24/7 operation keeps pace with global growth. - Spending time on farm with customers, with our field reps, and at our R&D farm - Partnering with our field teams on customer health, and feeding what you're seeing back to Product, Engineering, and the AI team. - Working alongside leaders in our other regions, shaping how we do support globally.   Who we're looking for - Experience leading multiple customer-facing teams through other leaders or managers. - Experience in a 24/7, multi-time-zone or technical support environment. - Experience building a new team or service model from scratch, ideally an Enterprise, key account or strategic customer function. - Experience with both proactive and reactive customer support models. - A track record of building capability and lifting performance over time. - Experience co-owning strategy and turning it into measurable outcomes. - A track record of owning and improving support metrics, with strong data skills and sound judgement across operational, customer and technical priorities. - Experience working cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, AI, Field or Technical Support. - The ability to influence leaders and stakeholders outside your reporting line.   You'll crush this role if you - Can think strategically while staying close to customers and operational detail. - Build and grow leaders, not just individual contributors. - Create clarity across teams with different priorities and operating rhythms. - Get stuck into hard problems and build systems that stop them coming back. - Run on data, using it daily to make decisions, spot patterns and improve outcomes. - Care about the whole customer experience, even when parts of it sit outside your direct ownership. - Thrive in speed and ambiguity, and make good calls with half the picture. - Think big but start small, getting a scrappy first version out, testing it and scaling what works. - Are already AI-first, using new tools to make teams faster, sharper and more capable. - Last but definitely not least; Are customer obsessed. You care deeply about farmers, ranchers and their animals, and you won’t settle for “good enough” when it comes to their experience.   Bonus points if you have - Experience leading a regional or global Customer, Support, Success or Operations function. - Experience leading an overnight or 24/7 function. - Experience with hardware products or field-deployed technology. - An understanding of the farming or livestock industry. - Startup or high-growth experience. - Familiarity with tools like Intercom, Salesforce, or similar. - Experience with AI support tooling and human-in-the-loop workflows. - Experience in agtech.   Why our team loves working at Halter - Dedicate yourself to solving real-world problems alongside an epic team in a culture designed around growth. - A genuine and shared connection to our mission to make a difference in the world. - The pride of joining an iconic New Zealand technology company. The excitement, risk, and reward of a high-growth technology scale-up on the global stage. - Our ideas are truly valued, we are able to move fast, and our impact is real. - State-of-the-art, dog-friendly office that’s been thoughtfully designed right in the heart of Auckland city. Did we mention dogs and cows? - Healthy body, healthy mind. We’re partnered with Southern Cross Health Insurance to support your well-being. - We offer 6 months of fully paid parental leave for primary caregivers, 4 weeks of fully paid secondary caregiver leave and many other parental benefits that support you and your family. - Our personal growth is important. Halter offers an annual $1000 self-development budget to be used for anything that fuels personal growth. - Our time to recharge is valued, we’re offered wellness leave and unlimited paid annual leave. - We offer an inclusive and attractive remuneration package made up of salary, benefits and an employee stock ownership plan. - Delicious snacks and drinks are available for your daily flow.     Our Office First Approach   There’s a reason you visit your friends in person, live with your family and don’t do dinners over Zoom. Humans are wired for connection. We believe a world-class, in-person office culture is the best way for high-performing teams. Being office first is a core pillar of our culture. We believe in-person connections are key to driving your own growth, learning, impact, and building genuine long-lasting relationships. Strong relationships make it easier to disagree, give feedback, and do meaningful and aligned work. We don’t like having heaps of rules or policies, but this means having strong, trusted relationships is critical.   We’re office first, not office only. This means working from the office everyday is our default setting, but we flex when we need to. We have a high-trust culture, so everyone is trusted to do what’s best for Halter.   Our office vibe is something special, it’s hard to describe until you’re here, but people at Halter who have come from fully remote or hybrid companies say they could never go back - the high energy and spectacular people they are now surrounded by everyday makes work so enjoyable. Your growth, your learning and your impact is truly unlimited here, and a big part of that comes from being together solving problems, innovating, building context, and constantly learning from each other.   JOIN OUR TEAM Halter is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace — a place where we can each be ourselves and do the best work of our lives. Research shows that while men apply to jobs when they meet an average of 60% of the requirements, women and under-represented groups of candidates tend to only apply when they meet every requirement. If you think you have what it takes but don’t necessarily tick every requirement on this job description, please still get in touch and apply to Halter. We’d love to chat to see if you’ll be an epic fit! If this opportunity sounds like you, please apply below by sending through your cover letter explaining why you’re excited about this role and working at Halter, along with your CV, and we’ll be in touch! Please also feel free to check out the careers page https://www.halterhq.com/careers for more information on working at Halter and don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/halter-limited & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifeathalter/. WHY OUR TEAM LOVES WORKING AT HALTER: - Work that genuinely matters. Every now and again a company comes along that transforms an entire industry and leaves the world in a better place. Our team gets to be part of something truly meaningful, helping farmers improve their livelihoods, spend more time with their families, and build more sustainable operations. - Spectacular people solving hard problems. Our culture is designed for talented people to do work that changes lives. The team is filled with diverse, kind, and driven people who push each other to do their best work. You'll be thrown into the deep end, tackling complex challenges and building something tangible that solves real problems. - You'll grow here. Autonomy, mastery, and learning define how we work. You'll have the freedom to work on interesting problems, master new skills, and continuously develop yourself, both through your role and our personal growth fund. - This isn't easy, and we love that it's hard. Working at Halter will be the most rewarding and the most challenging work of your life. We move fast, take bold bets, and work hard to reshape an entire industry. As one team member put it: "Joining Halter is a bit like strapping yourself to a rocket ship, but it's an epic journey to be a part of!"