Customer Support Engineer

VAST Data; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

VAST Data in San Francisco is seeking a Customer Support Engineer to join our growing team. You will be the technical expert for post‑sales support, addressing customer issues, analyzing root causes, and collaborating with engineering to resolve problems in storage and data management environments.

You will work with field engineers and professional services on onsite activities, contribute to knowledge base, and help maximize adoption of VAST products.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in customer-facing, pre-sale/post-sale roles in complex storage environments.
• Strong Linux knowledge and networking understanding, with the ability to troubleshoot in real time.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills.

Responsibilities

• Build trusted customer relationships based on a customer-first mindset and technical excellence.
• Respond to technical support issues quickly, with hands-on troubleshooting and clear communication.
• Handle daily technical operations and drive issues to resolution or escalation as needed.
• Perform and support field services for installations, upgrades, breaks, and expansions.
• Collaborate with pre-sales, services, and engineering to resolve customer problems.

Skills

Customer-facing experience

Linux system administration

Networking basics

Bash scripting

S3 / cloud storage experience

High-Performance Computing knowledge

Communication skills

Education

MS or BS in CS/CE/EE or related fields

Tools

Linux

S3

NAS

Job 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 in the center of the hurricane being created by 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 in computing history.

Summary

As a member of the Customer Support Engineering team you will be regarded as a VAST Data technical expert. You will be involved in daily technical operations and escalations, working 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 resolve it, and escalating to engineering when necessary. You will also develop and test 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. Additionally, you will work directly with customers and various business functions: consulting pre‑sales teams on technical sales activities, supporting Professional Services on onsite field activities, and collaborating with engineering to solve technical problems.

The Role

• Build trusted customer relationships based on a customer‑first mindset, technical excellence, and command of VAST products
• Respond to technical support issues quickly, working hands‑on keyboard to resolve or appropriately elevate them while maintaining strong communication
• Complete daily technical operations as needed, 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 while 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 enterprise IT infrastructure, networking and storage, and a broad understanding of enterprise software
• Knowledge and working experience in common Linux system administration tasks and Linux OS in general
• Good understanding of networking, and experience with network configurations on Linux and network troubleshooting
• Proficiency in bash scripting; familiarity with one or more additional programming languages
• Significant experience required in file systems and scale‑out NAS implementation
• In‑depth knowledge and hands‑on experience with S3 and high‑performance computing (advantage)
• Excellent business written and verbal communication and presentation skills
• Hands‑on lab and hardware management experience (advantage)
• Experience working in a rapidly growing entrepreneurial, dynamic start‑up (advantage)
• MS or B.Sc. in CS, CE, EE or related fields
• Ability to travel – you will need to travel around 20% of the time
• Rotational weekend shift once every 8–12 weeks and occasional holiday coverage