Support Engineer - Fully Remote - UK Based

About Seventh State

Seventh State is a dynamic and growing technology company committed to providing cutting-edge messaging solutions to our diverse clientele. We pride ourselves on our deep expertise in RabbitMQ and our dedication to ensuring the success and stability of our customers' mission-critical systems. We foster a collaborative and innovative work environment where talented individuals can thrive and make a significant impact.

If you are passionate about distributed systems, enjoy tackling complex challenges, and are driven to deliver exceptional customer experiences, Seventh State is the place for you.

The Opportunity

We are seeking a highly motivated and technically proficient Support Engineer to join our exceptional team. In this pivotal role, you will be at the forefront of our customer interactions, acting as a trusted advisor and technical expert for clients utilizing RabbitMQ. You will play a crucial role in maintaining the health, performance, and reliability of their messaging infrastructure. This is an exciting opportunity to leverage your deep technical skills, hone your problem-solving abilities, and contribute to the success of our valued customers. You will work alongside experienced consultants and engineers, continuously expanding your knowledge and making a tangible difference.

Key Responsibilities

As a Support Engineer, your responsibilities will be multifaceted, encompassing direct customer support, proactive system monitoring, knowledge sharing, and contributions to the broader technical community.

Customer Support Activities

• Prompt and Effective Ticket Resolution: You will diligently monitor and respond to customer support tickets in a timely and professional manner, ensuring clear communication and efficient resolution of their technical inquiries and issues.

• Collaborative Problem Solving via Customer Calls: You will actively participate in scheduled and unscheduled calls with customers to gain a deeper understanding of their challenges, provide real-time guidance, and collaboratively troubleshoot and resolve complex technical problems.

• In-depth Data Analysis and Insight Generation: You will expertly analyse customer-provided information, including configuration details, logs, and usage patterns, to accurately diagnose the root cause of problems, derive insightful conclusions, and provide clear, actionable recommendations for next steps and preventative measures.

• Reliable On-Call Support: You will participate in an on-call rotation to provide critical support outside of regular business hours, including weekends, ensuring continuous 24/7 availability and rapid response for urgent customer issues on a rota based system.

• Proactive System Health Monitoring and Checks: You will conduct routine "mini health checks" on customer RabbitMQ installations, proactively identifying potential issues and providing recommendations to optimize performance and stability.

• Dedicated Customer Communication and Proactive Reviews: You will establish and maintain regular communication with customers regarding the overall health of their RabbitMQ environments. This includes performing thorough offline reviews of their configurations, analysing logs for anomalies, and understanding their specific use cases to provide tailored advice and best practice recommendations.

Other Responsibilities

• Continuous Learning and Knowledge Enhancement: You will have time to expand your knowledge and stay on top of the latest features, updates, and best practices related to RabbitMQ and the surrounding ecosystem of tools and technologies.

• Collaboration and Support for Consulting Team: You will work collaboratively with our Consulting team, providing technical assistance and insights to support their engagements and ensure seamless delivery of solutions to our clients.

• Active Participation in Knowledge Sharing: You will contribute to internal knowledge sharing initiatives by documenting solutions, creating knowledge base articles, and participating in team discussions to elevate the overall technical expertise within the company.

• Content Creation and Community Engagement: You will have the opportunity to develop engaging blog content, sharing your expertise and insights with the wider RabbitMQ community. You will also be encouraged to represent Seventh State by delivering presentations and participating in discussions at relevant industry conferences and meetups.

Your Technical Expertise

• Experience in Operations: You have experience managing production systems, responding to incidents, and implementing best practices. You are familiar with monitoring, logging, and incident management and have hands-on experience with deployment, configuration, and troubleshooting in live production systems.

• Experience with Messaging Systems: You have experience with distributed systems that use some form of messaging system (e.g. RabbitMQ, Kafka, Pulsar, etc). The role is focusing on RabbitMQ and you will have time to acquire deep knowledge in it.

• Programming Proficiency: You have some proficiency in at least one programming language, ideally some knowledge of Erlang due to its foundational role in RabbitMQ but this is not essential. Furthermore, you have a solid understanding and working knowledge of other programming languages commonly used in conjunction with messaging systems.

• Foundational IT Knowledge: You have a solid grasp of fundamental networking principles (TCP/IP, DNS, firewalls, load balancers, etc), operating systems (both Windows and Linux server environments), and core programming concepts.

• Linux User Proficiency: You are comfortable working with Linux operating systems at the user level, including navigating the file system, utilizing command-line tools for basic system administration and log analysis.

Your Soft Skills

• Analytical and Problem-Solving Abilities: You have good analytical skills with the ability to effectively collect, organize, and interpret technical information from various sources. You can derive meaningful insights from complex data, identify root causes of problems, and make sound, informed decisions to develop effective solutions and recommend appropriate next steps.

• Systematic and Methodical Approach: You employ a structured and systematic approach to problem-solving, ensuring thorough investigation, accurate diagnosis, and well-documented solutions.

• Strong Communication Skills: You have strong written and verbal communication skills, enabling you to clearly and concisely convey technical information to both technical and non-technical audiences, including customers with varying levels of expertise.

• Professionalism and Customer Focus: You maintain a high level of professionalism and composure even in stressful situations. You have a strong customer-centric approach and are adept at managing customer expectations effectively, ensuring a positive support experience.

Bonus Points

• Cloud Platform Experience: Experience working with and supporting applications deployed on major cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP is highly desirable.

• Advanced Linux Administration Skills: Familiarity with Linux system administration tasks, including package management, service configuration, performance monitoring, and basic scripting, is a significant advantage.

• Containerization Technologies: Experience with containerization technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes is a plus.