Automotive Service Manager- Must have Experience Managing a Service Shop

Kitsap Auto Outlet • Full-time • Port Orchard, WA, US • $120k - $180k / year • 2w ago

Service Manager

$120,000 – $180,000+ Annual Earning Potential

4-Day Work Week Performance-Based No Franchise Politics No Ceiling

The best service managers in this market are running franchise departments, hitting their numbers, and watching the upside go to a corporate P&L they will never see. If that is you — this is worth reading.

Kitsap Auto Outlet has been in business for 18 years. We retail 100+ vehicles a month. Our service department runs on a 4×10 rotating schedule, six technicians, seven lifts, and one open bay waiting for your first hire on day one. Our technicians consistently say it is one of the best shops they have worked in. Rotary lifts, current scan tools, organized workflow. The infrastructure is built. The leadership opportunity is real.

A two-year physical expansion adds four to five bays and takes this department to ten to eleven technicians. If you know service, you know what those inputs mean. Do the math. That is the opportunity you are walking into.

What You’ll Earn

Compensation is performance-based. There is no ceiling. What you build is what you earn.

COMPENSATION ELEMENT

DETAIL

Annual Earning Potential

$120,000 – $180,000+

Structure

Performance-based — no ceiling

Schedule

4 days on. 3 days off. Every week.

Upside

Scales directly with what you build

The $180,000+ figure is not a starting salary; it is what this role is worth to us when the right person runs it at the level we expect. We are prepared to pay it.

The Opportunity

The structure is already here. Seven lifts. One hundred plus units a month moving through recon. A retail labor rate of $175 per hour. Your job is to maximize what those inputs produce — and then build the next phase.

The Role

You will own the service department. Scheduling, throughput, advisor performance, DVI compliance, customer experience, and department profitability, all of it is yours. You report directly to General Manager & Ownership. There is no corporate layer between what you identify and what gets fixed. Decisions move fast here because we are built that way.

Hire the 7th technician immediately. The lift is ready, the volume supports it, the decision is yours
Own DVI compliance on every RO without exception; photos, inspections sent, advisor execution, every time
Coach your service advisor on write-up quality, send rate, and upsell conversion. Every inspection is revenue waiting to be approved
Manage scheduling and dispatch to maximize productive hours and eliminate waste
Own your KPIs daily. Hours per RO, tech efficiency by individual, retail vs. internal mix, and labor GP
Recruit continuously. The pipeline for the 10-to-11 tech buildout starts the day you arrive, not when the bays open
Participate in the physical expansion plan, you will have a seat at that table because you will be running what gets built

Your Assistant Service Manager is already in place. He knows the systems, the team, and the shop. You are not starting from scratch. You’re inheriting a foundation and building something significantly larger on top of it.

Who We’re Looking For

We look for five things: Attitude. Effort. Teamwork. Innovation. Results. For this role, you need all five and a track record that proves it without prompting.

You have run a service department, franchise or independent, both respected here
You have hired, developed, and when necessary replaced technicians and advisors
You can quote your last department’s GP, hours per RO, and tech efficiency without looking it up
DVI compliance is a non-negotiable standard in your shop, not a goal, not a suggestion
You build process, document it, and hold people to it without requiring ownership to ask
You communicate directly, hold people accountable, and do not need to be managed
You looked at the opportunity table above and immediately ran the numbers in your head

This is not a training role. We are not developing anyone into this position. If you are not already running a service department at a high level, this is not the right fit and we will both know it quickly.

What You Won’t Find Here

A service director above you limiting what you can decide
Manufacturer mandates, OEM scorecards, or warranty penetration targets
Corporate approval processes for decisions that should take ten minutes
A DVI process treated as optional by anyone in the building
A place where average performance is tolerated because replacing people is uncomfortable

What You Will Find

Seven lifts, six technicians, and an open bay waiting for your first hire on day one
A shop on a 4×10 rotating schedule. Maximum production, structured coverage, every week
One hundred plus units a month in recon volume. Your internal hours are built in before you sell a single retail job
A retail labor rate of $175 per hour, do the math on what that means at full build
AutoVitals for digital inspections — the platform is in place; full compliance is the opportunity you are walking into
A 4-day work week, every week; we built our schedule this way intentionally because we want the best people and we know what matters to them
Direct access to ownership, if something needs to change, you say so and it changes
Paid time off that grows with your tenure
Paid Medical Insurance
401(k)

About Kitsap Auto Outlet

Independent. Port Orchard-based. Founded in 2008. 40+ employees, three buildings, 18 years in the Kitsap market. We are not a franchise; which means we move fast, make decisions without layers of approval, and hold ourselves to standards that do not require a manufacturer’s scorecard to define or measure.

We operate with urgency, precision, and a commitment to doing things right. The Service Manager we hire will be a core part of building a department, and a business, that everyone here is proud of. That is not a line. It is how we have operated for 18 years.

To apply, submit your resume and tell us three things: the size of the last department you ran, what the monthly labor GP was when you left, and the single most significant thing you changed while you were there. Candidates who cannot answer those questions are not ready for this role.

We are prepared to show proof of every claim in this posting . Come prepared to do the same.

Pay: $120,000.00 - $180,000.00 per year

Benefits: