Senior Support Engineer

WHO WE ARE.

Element develops a secure, sovereign and interoperable communications platform, devised primarily for government, defence and public sector organisations. An alternative to Microsoft Teams or WhatsApp that gives people and organisations the independence to communicate with confidence.

We are a for-profit company that is committed to open source. We build Element on top of an open protocol called Matrix, which was created by the same team that leads Element. Matrix is an open source project managed by the non-profit Matrix.org Foundation.

Element works closely with BWI on the BwMessenger for the German Armed Forces, NATO, the United Nations, the Interdepartmental Digital Directorate (DINUM) in the French government for Tchap, the UK MOD, the US DOD and Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior and Home Affairs and Dataport on the development of a sovereign workplace for public administration.

In Germany, Matrix has also been mandated by Gematik for healthcare communications, and is generally widely used across every government level (from local to federal), becoming the de facto standard for sovereign and secure communications. As the creators of Matrix, Element is the best placed to surf this opportunity and strengthen its market leader position.

We build things for everyone, and we know we can’t succeed without a diverse team. Our hiring process is crafted to be respectful and give candidates the best chance to show us what you can do. If we ever fall down on this, please let us know.

THE ROLE.

The most important thing is that you believe passionately in the mission of decentralisation of the internet. More specifically that you believe that communications should not be centralised in the hands of a small number of very large organisations and instead individuals should control their own data and choose who they share it with.

Element Support Engineers provide a first line of technical expertise for both our On Premise and Hosted Cloud customers.

Element is a global company with a strategic focus on the German public sector. As such, we’re looking to add a German fluent speaker (C1 level) to our Support team. Fluent English and German is essential, and experience working with German Government customers would be highly valued.

Requirements

We don’t have hard requirements for the role, we just want to build the best possible team, but we'd be particularly excited to speak to you if you have experience with some of the following:

• Fluency in German and English (C1 level)
• Sufficient familiarity with Linux (Ubuntu/Red Hat) hands-on administration to replicate customer environments and reproduce issues
• Experience with Kubernetes and Helm charts
• Ability to query a database using SQL
• Familiarity with Ansible

This is not a software development role, but the following are also required:

• Familiarity with a programming or scripting language (Python, JavaScript, and Rust are especially useful)
• Familiarity with web technologies and client/server architecture
• Familiarity with Git

Additionally, we are ideally looking for someone who has

• Experience working with German Government customers
• Experience working with Open Source projects
• Demonstrated ability to work as part of a fully distributed team
• Aptitude and enthusiasm to fill gaps in our written product documentation
• Security clearance SÜ2 would be beneficial

Benefits

• Private Health Insurance / Medical Allowance (depending on the country)

• Plumm Health
• Annual Bonus
• Share Options
• Home Office Allowance
• Coworking Space Allowance (except London & Rennes)
• 40 days Annual Leave (including local bank holidays)
• Flexible working hours
• Company Socials (virtual or in person)
• Family friendly environment
• You might be eligible for other benefits depending on your location.

ELEMENT VALUES.

• We are an open company
• We help our customers succeed
• We are ambitious
• We are bias to action
• We trust and look after each other
• We leave the world a better place

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION.

Element does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, colour, religion, age, national origin, marital status, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other reason prohibited by law in provision of employment opportunities and benefits.