Helpdesk Specialist - Mid-Level
Summary
Mid-level helpdesk specialist providing Tier 0–2 support for FDA applications and services at a Silver Spring, MD site: handling ticket intake, triage, and escalations in ServiceNow, troubleshooting accounts, access, and connectivity, and maintaining knowledge documentation while coordinating with FDA technical teams.
Customer Intake, Triage and Queue Management
· Monitor and respond to requests received through
ServiceNow queues, shared email, Microsoft Teams chat, telephone, virtual
support sessions, and approved in-person channels.
· Gather customer contact information and relevant
issue details; capture the request accurately in ServiceNow; determine impact,
urgency, severity, and the appropriate support tier.
· Categorize, prioritize, assign, color-code or
otherwise mark, track, and update tickets using established taxonomy,
workflows, quality standards, and service procedures.
· Maintain clear ticket ownership, status,
troubleshooting history, customer communications, dependencies, next actions,
escalation paths, and closure documentation.
· Prioritize time-sensitive requests and provide
timely acknowledgment and status updates consistent with applicable
service-level expectations.
Tier 0, Tier 1 and Tier 2 Support
· Provide Tier 0 support by directing customers to
approved training materials, knowledge articles, recordings, guides,
demonstrations, FAQs, and other self-service resources.
· Provide Tier 1 support for account creation,
study group registration, study and data access, initial tool access,
provisioning and software-installation request intake, connectivity and login
troubleshooting, and getting-started guidance.
· Provide Tier 2 support, within approved
tool-specific boundaries, for issues not resolved at Tier 0 or Tier 1,
including advanced troubleshooting, user coaching, analytical-tool guidance,
and coordination with analysts or project teams.
· Use phone, email, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, screen
sharing, virtual sessions, and periodic desk-side or onsite assistance to guide
users and resolve issues.
· Provide general triage for FDA tools or services
and route requests to the appropriate help desk, IT Call Center, project team,
or support organization.
Escalation and Issue Coordination
· Document Tier 3 issues completely in ServiceNow
and assign or route them to the responsible FDA, application, development,
infrastructure, licensing, provisioning, or project support group.
· Report suspected system bugs in ServiceNow and,
when required by the receiving development team, document and coordinate the
issue in Jira.
· Track escalated issues, external dependencies,
pause periods, customer actions, Government actions, and resolution progress
through closure.
· Coordinate with technical SMEs and project teams
while maintaining customer communication and avoiding unsupported scientific,
regulatory, or policy determinations.
· Participate in daily analyst check-ins and
weekly queue reviews to address complex requests, aging tickets, lessons
learned, roadblocks, and next steps.
Customer Enablement and Communications
· Guide users through onboarding to FDA
applications, services, training resources, and support channels.
· Provide clear, patient, accurate, and
customer-focused assistance to reviewers with varying levels of technical
experience.
· Prepare or distribute approved communications
regarding outages, maintenance, service changes, new features, training, and
operational updates.
· Support customer surveys, feedback collection,
Microsoft Forms, SurveyMonkey activities, and follow-up communications as
assigned.
· Promote user self-sufficiency while recognizing
when direct analyst, project-team, or technical support is required.
Knowledge Management and Operational Documentation
· Create, maintain, and update SOPs, triage
workflows, production support plans, knowledge articles, user guides,
quick-reference guides, response templates, contact lists, escalation
procedures, and tool-specific support materials.
· Maintain knowledge resources in SharePoint and
OneNote and participate in quarterly documentation reviews and updates.
· Capture recurring questions, proven resolutions,
support gaps, and lessons learned for incorporation into self-service and
analyst resources.
· Support knowledge transfer, shadowing,
cross-training, and onboarding of new analysts to preserve operational
continuity.
· Apply established quality-control checks so
customer-facing content is accurate, clear, accessible, and includes working
links.
Service-Level and Severity Expectations
CATEGORY | REQUIREMENT |
Severity 1 | Global failure affecting multiple customers. Target
acknowledgment/response: 15 minutes; target resolution: 3 hours. Immediately
follow escalation and communication procedures. |
Severity 2 | Complete work stoppage for one customer. Target
acknowledgment/response: 1 hour; target resolution: 6 hours. |
Severity 3 | Single-customer problem where work can continue. Target
acknowledgment/response: 4 hours; target resolution: 2 days. |
Severity 4 | Service request or procedural question. Target
acknowledgment/response: 1 day; target resolution: 3 days. |
Dependency Control | When resolution depends on customer information,
Government action, Tier 3 support, licensing, provisioning, system recovery,
or another external dependency, document the dependency and applicable pause
period in ServiceNow and continue coordination through closure. |
Requirements
Required Qualifications
CATEGORY | REQUIREMENT |
Education | Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer
Science, Information Systems, Business Information Systems, Health
Informatics, or a related discipline. An equivalent combination of education
and directly relevant experience may be considered. |
Experience | Three to five years of Help Desk, Service Desk,
application support, technical support, or customer support experience in an
enterprise environment. |
Ticket Management | Demonstrated experience with incident and request intake,
triage, prioritization, documentation, escalation, tracking, customer
updates, and closure using ServiceNow or a comparable platform. |
Technical Support | Experience troubleshooting software, user accounts,
access, connectivity, login, application usage, and data-access issues and
guiding users through remote support sessions. |
Customer Service | Strong written and verbal communication, active listening,
organization, follow-through, attention to detail, and ability to explain
technical information clearly to nontechnical users. |
Documentation | Experience creating or maintaining SOPs, knowledge
articles, user guides, response templates, workflows, or other operational
documentation. |
Federal Readiness | Ability to satisfy FDA/HHS suitability, identity
credentialing, mandatory training, nondisclosure, information security,
privacy, records management, and rules-of-behavior requirements applicable to
the position. |
Technical Skills
· ServiceNow or an equivalent enterprise
ticket-management platform.
· Microsoft 365, including Outlook, Teams,
SharePoint, OneNote, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
· Virtual collaboration and remote-support tools,
including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and screen sharing.
· Knowledge repositories, ticket taxonomies,
triage workflows, escalation procedures, and customer-support best practices.
· Basic reporting and data-quality skills;
familiarity with Power BI, Microsoft Forms, SurveyMonkey, Power Automate, or
Jira is desirable.
· Ability to learn specialized scientific
computing tools, data environments, reviewer workflows, training resources, and
tool-specific support boundaries.
Preferred Qualifications
· FDA, NIH, HHS, or other Federal health agency
experience.
· Experience supporting scientific, clinical,
analytical, regulatory-review, or similarly specialized applications and user
communities.
· Working knowledge of ITIL incident, request,
escalation, knowledge, and continual-improvement practices.
· Experience supporting account provisioning,
application access, study or data access, analytical tools, or regulated data
environments.
· Familiarity with Section 508/WCAG accessibility,
Federal records management, and handling of sensitive Government information.
· Experience supporting new-service onboarding,
user training, surveys, customer communications, or workflow automation.