Posted over 5 years ago

Dedicated Support Engineer - Customer Site (Sheffield)

No two days are the same in Support & Technical Services. We engage in challenging problems to solve, constantly pick each other’s brains and our minds are always abuzz with ideas for helping our customers to make the most of their Ubuntu systems.

Our team is geographically distributed, speak many languages and originate from a variety of cultural backgrounds. We are rapidly expanding and we are looking for talented people with a passion for problem solving and commitment to customer happiness.

If you love learning something new all the time and it makes your day when customers and colleagues thank you for your help, this may be the job for you.

We are rapidly expanding and are looking for talented professionals with a passion for working on the next generation of Ubuntu solutions for our customers.

Role Description

We are in the process of creating an enterprise-scale OpenStack cloud, based on Ubuntu Server and its associated technologies, for a large commercial customer.

A Dedicated Support Engineer must be a self-motivating and self-managing person who can learn complex technologies quickly. The Dedicated Support Engineer will be embedded within the customer team and be accountable for providing an outstanding technical support experience to our customer.

Your duties will include acting as the primary point of contact for all support issues, as well as providing Ubuntu Server and Cloud expertise to the customer. This allows the customer to gain proactive support and services as an integral component of the engineering team. The Dedicated Support Engineer will be directly available to the client with the assistance of a Canonical Project Manager and the Canonical Support & Technical Services team. Each day you will have to make judgment calls regarding your ticket queue, prioritising it to maximise your effectiveness while setting aside time to learn about our new products and technologies. You will also participate in various training sessions, team gatherings and Company events.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES & ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Take ownership of new support cases via telephone, email and Web.
• Qualify a customer inquiry by collecting the relevant facts.
• Investigate issues reported by customers by doing your own research and involving others on the team as necessary.
• On-site customer support working to resolve complex customer problems related to Ubuntu OpenStack technologies, Juju, MAAS, charms, container technologies (LXD, Docker, etc) as well as general Ubuntu Server issues.
• Manage support escalations and issue prioritisation, acting internally as a customer advocate.
• Provide architectural design and recommendations for Ubuntu and Canonical technologies (MAAS, Juju, Landscape, container technologies, etc.).
• Act as the named, dedicated contact within Canonical for support issues for the customer.
• Participate in regular calls with customer and Canonical to discuss project direction.
• Liaise within Canonical's various engineering teams to triage and resolve customer issues.
• Ensure that each support case owned by you is handled as per our Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the highest possible customer satisfaction by setting the right expectations and fulfilling your commitments.
• Maintain a proactive approach to customer happiness, identifying and correcting customer satisfaction concerns before they become problems.
• Contribute your findings to a common knowledge base and keep it up to date.
• Gain subject matter expertise in one or more domains.
• Ability to travel internationally up to 20% of the time.
• Capable of placing servers in top of racks

REQUIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

• Minimum 5 years experience of supporting Linux systems in enterprise environments.
• Senior Level Linux Professional LPIC-3 (or equivalent) certification or experience.
• Extensive experience with OpenStack, virtualization and other Cloud technologies.
• Automated Linux provisioning and advanced configuration.
• Advanced system administration tasks (auditing, monitoring, logging, performance tuning, capacity planning, etc.).
• Advanced troubleshooting (up to core dump analysis and kernel dump analysis desirable).
• Demonstrable expertise in one or more of the following areas:
• Advanced storage (RAID, LVM, SAN, file system tuning, etc.)
• Advanced networking (bonding, firewalling, bridging, switching, network file system tuning, etc.)
• Clustering, cloud computing (provisioning, monitoring, orchestration, etc.)
• Linux integration with other environments (authentication/directory services, network file systems, etc.)
• Open Source software development.
• Development level and troubleshooting experience with at least 2 programming languages like Bash, C, Python, GO, etc .
• Ability to manage multiple issues and projects while maintaining a high level of detail.
• Experience managing customer relationship: consulting, account management, or direct support.
• Experience with Ubuntu or Debian. Must be able to understand Ubuntu OS bugs and advise on next steps, acting as a generalist when necessary.
• Strong networking and social skills, good relationship building abilities, process driven, able to manage multiple work streams, good prioritisation, independent.
• Ability to learn quickly, thrive on change and handle the pressure of a customer and partner facing role, meeting delivery goals and timelines.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English.

DESIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

• Debian packaging experience and knowledge of Ubuntu development processes.
• Direct experience with MAAS and Juju.
• Proven Open Source development skills using current and accepted open source tooling and troubleshooting methodologies.
• Familiarity with Open Source process and community practices required as well as familiarity with Open Source business model desirable.
• Proficient with additional programming languages other than Bash, C and Python (Perl, Ruby, JavaScript, Go, etc.).
• Knowledge of Operating Systems other than Ubuntu.
• Fluency in languages other than English