As the fast-growing Open-Source Orchestration Platform, Kestra is designed to handle applications, data pipelines, infrastructure operations, and business workflows at scale. By embracingEverything-as-Code, Kestra provides engineering teams with powerful, unified orchestration solutions, seamlessly accessible through a feature-rich UI and CLI. Whether scaling for enterprise needs or driving innovation, Kestra enables orchestration that works Everywhere, All at Once.
We are looking for our new Senior Field Engineer
The Kestra Customers Team unifies various customer-facing positions, including Sales, Solutions Engineering, Customer Success, and Alliances. Our customer base has significantly grown and we need to expand our Customer Success team.
We are seeking a highly skilled and versatile Senior Field Engineer to join our team in a dynamic 360° role, blending the expertise of a Technical Account Manager and Solution Architect. This position offers a unique opportunity to work across diverse responsibilities, with a focus on delivering top-tier technical solutions and support to our customers.
In this role, your key responsibilities will include:
- Leading Technical Architecture & Custom Development Strategies
As a Senior Field Software Engineer, you will collaborate with senior engineers and architects to design and implement complex solutions. You’ll drive discussions on a wide array of topics—from Kubernetes rolling upgrades to crafting unit tests for executable workflows, and evaluating the trade-offs of custom plugin development.
Example: You’ll engage with senior software engineers and architects on diverse subjects like Kubernetes rolling upgrades, unit tests for runnable flows, and weighing the pros and cons of custom plugin development. - Managing Multi-Channel Support Requests
You’ll be the front-line responder for various support channels, providing technical assistance and guidance on everything from Kafka data retention policies to investigating memory leak risks.
Example: You’ll handle multiple support requests, like troubleshooting Kafka data retention policies or identifying memory leak risks in real-time systems. - Proactive Customer Support for Kestra Installation
You’ll leverage your technical expertise to assist customers in the installation and configuration of Kestra, ensuring smooth deployments via Docker on GKE, configuring PostgreSQL databases, provisioning resources with Terraform, and resolving any network or firewall issues.
Example: You’ll guide customers through Kestra installation on Docker, configuring PostgreSQL databases, provisioning infrastructure with Terraform, and troubleshooting network rule blockers. - Monitoring and Driving Customer Success
Regularly tracking customer progress, you will actively participate in key engagements such as Kick-Off Meetings, "Ask Me Anything" sessions, and Quarterly Business Reviews, ensuring that customers achieve their business goals with Kestra.
Example: You’ll attend and contribute to critical customer engagements like Kick-Off Meetings, “Ask Me Anything” sessions, and Quarterly Business Reviews to ensure success. - Enhancing Self-Serve Enterprise Documentation
You will play a pivotal role in improving our enterprise documentation by actively reporting enhancements and suggestions. You’ll work directly with our public documentation repository, ensuring our materials are comprehensive and accessible.
Example: You’ll contribute to the public documentation repository, filing improvements directly via GitHub Issues to ensure top-notch resources for our users.
Technology Stack:
- Hosting Provider: GCP/AWS/Azure
- Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform
- Datastore: Kafka, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, MySQL
- Backend: Java/Micronaut
- and a lot of plugins!
This role is fully remote, in Europe / North America
As a former Software Engineer with a proven track record of success in a customer-facing role, you're ready to take on a new challenge and make a significant impact in an early-stage startup environment. You are an accomplished “trusted advisor” who understands the needs of your customers, and now you're eager to bring your expertise and personal touch to a dynamic, evolving organization. It means that you're not afraid to take calculated risks and make decisions based on your experience and insights. You're confident in your ability to structure and deliver operations effectively, and you're comfortable adapting to the ever-changing landscape of a startup.
Hard Requirements:
- At least 5 years of experience as a Solution Architect, Technical Account Manager, or any other variation of the role.
- At least a previous experience as a Software Engineer in a modern IT context (Containerized & Cloud-Native, Java Applications, Infrastructure-as-Code & DevOps practices…)
- Hard Requirements are filtering criteria. To ensure a mutual fit, we ask that applicants meet the listed hard requirements. These criteria are essential for success in this position.
Skills:
- Experience with customer-centric methodologies to engage in strategic conversation and develop effective success plans.
- Excellent problem-solving and troubleshooting abilities to analyze customer issues, identify potential root causes (”5 Whys”), and apply appropriate troubleshooting techniques to find solutions.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills to clearly and concisely document support tickets, write detailed knowledge base articles, and prepare presentations and training materials effectively.
- Ability to analyze customer data and feedback to use this information to inform product development decisions, improve support processes, and identify opportunities for customer acquisition and retention.
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team to handle customer inquiries and resolve issues without constant developer assistance and will collaborate effectively with other departments to escalate issues & incidents.
- Ability to review and evaluate existing internal tooling and identify areas for improvement to enhance customer support, and automate repetitive tasks.