Customer Support Engineer

VAST Data; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

VAST Data in Houston, TX is seeking a Customer Support Engineer to join a fast-growing infrastructure company at the AI revolution’s center. You will work with a small team to handle post‑sales support, respond to issues, and contribute to solutions at customer sites and in the lab.

Ideal candidates have 5+ years in customer‑facing roles with storage expertise, Linux administration, scripting, and strong communication skills. Travel ~20% and on-site field work required.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in customer-facing roles handling complex storage solutions.
• Ability to manage time and workload with changing priorities.
• Extensive knowledge of enterprise IT infrastructure, networking, and storage.
• Linux system administration experience.
• Knowledge of networking and Linux-based configurations/troubleshooting.
• Scripting with Bash; familiarity with another programming language.
• Experience with file systems and scale-out NAS implementations.
• Bonus for S3 and high-performance computing knowledge.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills.
• Lab and hardware management experience a plus.
• Startup/dynamic environment experience a plus.
• MS or BS in CS/CE/EE or related fields.
• Willingness to travel ~20%.
• Rotational weekend shifts and holiday coverage.

Responsibilities

• Build trusted customer relationships based on a customer-first mindset and technical excellence.
• Respond to technical support issues quickly, with hands-on effort to resolve or escalate.
• Complete daily technical operations and drive issues to full resolution.
• Perform and support field services: installations, upgrades, break-fix and expansions as needed.
• Submit and manage feature requests and bugs to product/engineering teams.
• Advocate for account priorities and track bugs, feature requests and escalations.
• Identify opportunities for continuous improvement for customer adoption and usage of VAST products.
• Support and guide VAST data account teams on technical status and activities.
• Balance workload to meet KPIs and VAST SLAs while ensuring customer happiness.

Skills

Customer-facing

Pre-sale / post-sale

Linux administration

Networking basics

Bash scripting

Programming basics

File systems & NAS

S3 knowledge

Communication skills

Education

MS/BS in CS/CE/EE or related

Tools

Linux tooling

S3 knowledge

Job description

Description

VAST Data is looking for a Customer Support Engineer to join our growing team! This is a great opportunity to be part of one of the fastest-growing infrastructure companies in history, an organization that is at the center of the revolution in artificial intelligence.

"VAST's data management vision is the future of the market." - Forbes

VAST Data is the data platform company for the AI era. We are building the enterprise software infrastructure to capture, catalog, refine, enrich, and protect massive datasets and make them available for real‑time data analysis and AI training and inference. Designed from the ground up to make AI simple to deploy and manage, VAST takes the cost and complexity out of deploying enterprise and AI infrastructure across data center, edge, and cloud.

Our success has been built through intense innovation, a customer‑first mentality and a team of fearless VASTronauts who leverage their skills and experiences to make real market impact. This is an opportunity to be a key contributor at a pivotal time in our company’s growth and at a pivotal point in computing history.

Summary

As a member of the Customer Support Engineering team you will be regarded as a VAST Data technical expert and, as such, will be involved in daily technical operations and escalations. You will work with a small team of other Support Engineers and Success Managers to handle all post‑sales activity for the customer.

The main responsibilities include responding to customer issues (reactive and proactive), evaluating the problem, using hands‑on keyboard skills to solve the issue, and escalating to engineering with as much detail as possible when you can’t. You will also be involved in developing and testing solutions in strategically and tactically significant applications and use cases, including file protocols, machine learning, object storage, and high‑performance computing at customer sites and in the lab. You will work directly with customers, and various business functions: consulting pre‑sales teams on technical sales activities, supporting Professional Services with onsite field activities, and working with our engineering teams to solve technical problems.

The Role

• Build trusted customer relationships based on your customer‑first mindset, technical excellence and command of VAST product
• Respond to technical support issues quickly, working hands‑on keyboard to solve or escalate the issues while being highly communicative
• Complete daily technical operations as needed for the customers, working technical issues to full resolution and closure
• Perform and support field services for customers: installations, upgrades, break‑fix and expansions as needed
• Submit and manage Feature Requests and/or Bugs into product marketing and development teams
• Advocate for the priorities of your assigned accounts and continuously track and follow up on bugs, feature requests and escalations
• Identify opportunities to provide continuous improvement for customers to ensure full adoption and usage of VAST products
• Support and guide VAST data account teams on account technical status and activities
• Manage workload to balance meeting KPIs and VAST SLAs with ensuring customer happiness and satisfaction

Requirements

• Overall 5+ years of experience in customer‑facing, pre‑sale/post‑sale positions working with complex storage solutions
• Ability to manage own time and case load with rapidly changing priorities
• Extensive knowledge and experience in the enterprise IT infrastructure, networking and storage space is required, along with a broad understanding of the enterprise software world
• Knowledge and working experience in common Linux system administration tasks and Linux OS in general
• Good understanding of networking, and working experience with network configurations on Linux and network troubleshooting
• Scripting and programming – bash scripting is required; must be familiar with one or more other programming language
• Significant experience required in the areas of file systems and scale‑out NAS Implementation
• Advantage to candidates that have in‑depth knowledge and hands‑on experience with S3 and high‑performance computing
• Excellent business written and verbal communication and presentation skills
• Advantage to candidates that have hands‑on lab and hardware management experience
• Advantage to candidates that have experience working in a rapidly growing entrepreneurial, dynamic start‑up
• MS or B.Sc. in CS, CE, EE or related fields
• Ability to travel – to be successful in this role you will need to travel around 20% of the time
• Rotational weekend shift once every 8‑12 weeks and occasional holiday coverage