Customer Support Engineer (ComD092)

Role Description: 

At Defense Unicorns, we build software for environments where failure isn't an option — and our customers expect support to match. As a Support Engineer, you're not reading from a script or routing tickets into a void. You're the person who actually understands what's broken, why it's broken, and how to fix it. You'll work directly with technical customers to troubleshoot complex issues across Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, and CI/CD pipelines — and when something needs to go to engineering, you'll hand it off with enough context that they can move fast. If you like hard problems, honest conversations, and work that actually matters, you'll fit right in.

Responsibilities:

As a primary technical contact for customer issues, you will own problems from the first report through resolution. You'll work hands-on with customer environments, partner closely with engineering and our Customer Success Team when escalations warrant it, and continuously improve the systems and documentation that make the whole support function better.

Customer Support & Issue Resolution:

• Serve as a primary technical point of contact for customer-reported issues via ticketing system, Slack, and email
• Troubleshoot complex issues across Linux environments, Kubernetes clusters (EKS, AKS, RKE2, K3s, OpenShift), cloud infrastructure (AWS/Azure/GCP), and CI/CD pipelines
• Diagnose problems spanning hybrid cloud architectures — networking, RBAC, storage, and cluster lifecycle — across both cloud and on-prem environments
• Own escalated issues end-to-end — from triage and reproduction through resolution and post-mortem documentation, meeting defined SLA commitments
• Reproduce customer issues in test environments and characterize root causes with enough precision to accelerate engineering investigations
• Provide on-call support when the mission demands it
• Communicate clearly with customers on issue status, timelines, and workarounds

Technical Enablement & Knowledge Management:

• Write and maintain runbooks, escalation playbooks, and knowledge base articles that reduce repeat escalations
• Identify patterns in customer issues and surface product and documentation gaps to engineering and product teams
• Participate in on-call rotations and contribute to post-incident reviews

Team Contribution:

• Review and provide feedback on Tier 1  escalations before they reach engineering
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Customer Success, Platform Engineering, and Product teams
• Contribute to process improvements that increase support team efficiency and customer satisfaction

Success Metrics:

• Time-to-resolution across assigned customer issues
• Escalation quality — engineering can act on what you hand them
• Customer satisfaction scores
• Knowledge base coverage and reduction in repeat escalations
• On-call performance and incident contribution

The listed responsibilities are not exhaustive and additional responsibilities may be assigned or discovered based on the evolving needs of the organization. The successful candidate is a dynamic individual who is able to adapt and take on new responsibilities as they arise. You will be expected not just to fill gaps as they arise, but proactively identify and take ownership of gaps to drive toward new processes and solutions.

• 2–5 years of experience in technical support, DevOps, SRE, or a related engineering role
• Solid Linux proficiency — log analysis, process debugging, and system performance troubleshooting
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes — deploying workloads, troubleshooting pods, reading cluster state across managed distributions (EKS, AKS) and on-prem (RKE2, K3s, OpenShift)
• Strong knowledge of hybrid cloud architectures, including networking, RBAC, and storage for both cloud and on-prem clusters
• Practical knowledge of at least one major cloud provider (AWS or Azure preferred)
• Experience with Helm, GitOps workflows, and Infrastructure-as-Code tooling (Terraform or OpenTofu)
• Familiarity with DevSecOps/DevOps and CI/CD pipelines running on GitLab or GitHub
• Strong written and verbal communication — you can write a concise incident summary for an executive and a detailed reproduction guide for an engineer
• Experience working directly with external customers in a technical capacity
• Experience with day to day systems like: GitHub, Unthread (support ticketing), Linear (issue tracking), Planhat (customer success), and Notion
• Familiarity with open-source ecosystems
• DoD IAT Level II certification (such as Security+) (a plus)
• Active DoD Secret clearance or higher not required but preferred
• Kubernetes certification (CKA, CKAD, or CKS) (a plus)
• Scripting ability in Bash, Python, or Go (a plus)
• Familiarity with regulated, high-compliance, or air-gapped deployment environments (a plus).

Travel Expectations/Requirements: 10%-20%