First Technical Support Engineer
First Technical Support Engineer
Berlin, €65K - €85K EUR + Equity
TL;DR
Kombo (YC S22) is building a unified API that saves engineering teams hundreds of hours by integrating dozens of HRIS, ATS, and Payroll systems into one API. We're looking for ourfirst Technical Support Engineerto provide exceptional technical assistance to our rapidly growing customer base, debug complex integration issues, and build the foundation of our support function. You'll be the technical bridge between our customers and our product/engineering teams. We work primarily on-site from Berlin, Germany.
About Kombo
Kombo is building the unified API for HR, payroll, and recruiting systems. Instead of companies spending months integrating with dozens of different systems, they can integrate once with Kombo and instantly connect to over 160 platforms. We abstract away the complexity of handling different data schemas, authentication methods, and API quirks.
Since going through Y Combinator in 2022, we:
Grew from zero revenue to $4M+ ARR and hundreds of customers in 24 months (growth-wise among the ~top-5% of VC-backed startups)
Scaled to process data for the equivalent of 10% of Germany's workforce
Raised $8M+ of funding from Y Combinator, 468 Capital and other top-tier investors
Grew to a team of 35+ Kombies
About the role and support at Kombo
At Kombo we care A LOT about excellent support for our customers to a degree that is unusual. We do so because fundamentally we view excellent support as a competitive advantage.
How this looks like in practice is that
we win G2 badges for best support in our category
we get customer love for our support weekly and even frequently hear that our support is the best that our customers ever experienced (across all products they have used)
when we interview companies why they chose Kombo after a competitive process, “Kombo’s support quality” is the most common reason
The Challenge & Your Impact
However, we are at an inflection point. Our current setup (engineers rotating through support) is hitting scaling limits as we are experiencing strong product-market fit and growing rapidly.
To maintain and elevate the same experience for our customers, we are looking to bring on a dedicated technical support engineer that will be the primary technical point of contact for our customers. This a key role for us and you’ll…
directly impact customer satisfaction and retention by solving their technical roadblocks quickly and effectively. Your work enables customers to go live and get value from Kombo.
have the opportunity to have an outsized impact on how we build and scale the support function at Kombo – defining processes, choosing tools, and setting the standard for excellence.
be part of a fast-growing environment (~2-3x per year) where your contributions are highly visible and impactful.
What You'll Be Working On
In this role, you will act as a support engineer (not agent) - you’ll be resolving most issues directly yourself, and only escalating the more complex ones directly to the relevant engineering team. Concretely, this role involves:
Troubleshooting & Debugging: Diving deep into technical issues related to API integrations, data syncing, authentication (OAuth, API keys), and specific HRIS/ATS/Payroll system behaviours. You'll use logs, monitoring tools, and potentially read code to find root causes.
Customer Guidance: Assisting engineers (and other stakeholders) on the customer side with their Kombo integration via Slack, email, and occasional video calls, providing clear explanations and solutions.
Internal Collaboration: you will work closely with Product and Engineering teams to escalate complex bugs, relay customer feedback, and contribute to prioritizing fixes and features.
Knowledge Building: Creating and maintaining internal and external documentation, guides, and troubleshooting resources based on recurring issues and customer needs.
Process Improvement: we’re growing rapidly so need to make sure we are set up for future success. This means better tooling, automation, reporting, and more.
What this could look like in-practice:
Investigating why a specific customer's new hires aren't syncing correctly from their ATS via Kombo, potentially identifying a data mapping issue or an edge case in our integration logic.
Helping a customer's engineering team debug an OAuth 2.0 connection flow for a specific HRIS provider.
Analyzing support requests to identify a frequently misunderstood API parameter and collaborating with engineering to improve documentation or API design.
Setting up dashboards or alerts to proactively monitor common integration failure points.
Technology You'll Interact With: APIs (REST but also SOAP and OAuth), Node.js, TypeScript, SQL, GCP (for logs/monitoring), various HRIS/ATS/Payroll systems, Kombo’s dashboard and our custom internal troubleshooting tooling.
Who We're Looking For
This role is perfect for a technically adept individual with strong communication skills who wants to be foundational in building a customer support function at a high-growth startup. You are likely a great fit, if:
You have a strong technical background (e.g., previous Software Engineer, Support Engineer, Solutions Engineer) and are comfortable debugging complex technical problems, especially related to APIs and integrations. While you don’t need to be proficient, you should have familiarity with reading code.
You possess excellent communication skills (written and verbal) and can explain complex technical concepts clearly to engineers.
You are highly empathetic, patient, and genuinely enjoy helping others solve problems.
You thrive with autonomy, are proactive in identifying issues and improvements, and can manage your own workload effectively.
You have a knack for troubleshooting and a methodical approach to problem-solving.
You are looking for an environment that is primarily in an office - we are 4+ days/week in our Berlin office.
Prior experience in a support role is a big plus, but not required.
What It’s Like To Work at Kombo
Our culture is built around two pillars: high ambition (and thus high-performance) while still providing a fun and supportive environment.
Some tidbits that illustrate this:
Our growth puts us into the ~top-5% of VC companies and we have the ambition to keep this pace.
We aspire to create an environment of few but very high-performing team members (similar to Netflix or Ashby).
Even though we are in-office, we have a strong writing culture and use long-form documents to make important (one-way) decisions because we believe we make better decisions this way.
On average, we get together for a company-wide celebration ~once a week (larger feature release, big new closing, anniversary or birthday!)
Kombo’s Engineering Meme culture is legendary within the company.
Our Support Philosophy
Deep Understanding Over Quick Fixes
We prioritize understanding the root cause of a customer's issue, not just providing a workaround. This often involves collaborating with engineering, diving into logs, and truly understanding the integration's behaviour.
Feedback Loop Focus
Support is a critical source of product intelligence. We systematically track issues, identify patterns, and feed this information back into the product development cycle to reduce recurring problems and improve user experience.
Empowerment Through Knowledge and Tools
We aim to empower our customers and ourselves. We invest a lot into having comprehensive documentation, and built 4+ internal tools (e.g. a version of Postman - “Komboman” and a custom HRIS/ATS data explorer) to make troubleshooting faster and more efficient.
Closing
Overall, if joining an “SF company in Berlin” sounds appealing, then you should apply - even if you don't match all criteria. We're excited to talk to you!
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