Manager, Customer Engineering

Cortex; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 175,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision insurance

Unlimited PTO

401k plan

Parental leave

Learning & Development stipend

Perks stipend

Pet Insurance

Job summary

Cortex is hiring a Manager of Customer Engineering to lead a growing team of engineers who handle complex technical support for enterprise customers. You’ll stay hands-on with escalations while coaching staff, improving playbooks, and driving high-quality output.

With 5+ years in customer-facing tech roles and 2+ years of team leadership, you will shape processes, partner with Engineering and Product, and elevate the customer experience across the org.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in a customer‑facing technical role with hands-on enterprise troubleshooting.
• 2+ years directly managing a technical team, including hiring and performance.
• Able to read code across our stack and discuss root cause with Engineering.
• Strong written and verbal communication, with cross‑functional collaboration.
• Experience with Git workflows, CI/CD, and standard engineering practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the Customer Engineering team, balancing coaching and hands‑on work.
• Own technical escalations, set the team’s technical bar, and review PRs.
• QA tickets, track trends, and update processes, tooling, or docs.
• Maintain operating rhythm: triage, escalation paths, and on‑call coverage.
• Partner with Engineering and Product to drive customer‑driven improvements.

Skills

Customer-facing engineering

People management

Root cause analysis

Strong communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Troubleshooting complex issues

Tools

Git-based workflows

CI/CD

Code review process

Ticketing tooling

Job description

About Cortex

Cortex is the Engineering Operations Platform that enables organizations to continuously improve their operational maturity and reduce developer friction. With centralized visibility, clear ownership, automated Scorecards, and golden paths, we help engineering organizations operate as one.

Our customers – from startups to Fortune 100 enterprises – create a culture of engineering excellence, reducing incidents by 30% and improving MTTR by 50%, all while making it easier for developers to focus on building.

Location

We’re fully remote and welcome candidates from anywhere in the US! We have all-company offsites a few times a year where we fly the whole team out to meet in person, build stronger relationships, kick off important projects, and have fun!

The Team

We are a mighty group of ~80 passionate individuals excited about building a product that developers love. We recently raised $60M in Series C Funding this year led by Scale Ventures (with participation from Sequoia, IVP, and others) to build the Future of Developer Experience. You can read more about it here.

Role Summary

As the Manager of Customer Engineering, you’ll lead and grow the Customer Engineering team (our Technical Support team) while staying hands‑on with the most complex technical work. You’ll balance the day‑to‑day of:

• People Management: Coaching, performance, hiring, workload
• Technical Ownership: Becoming a product expert and continuously deepening that expertise, unblocking escalations, and setting the technical bar for the team.

You are accountable for the team and their output.

Responsibilities

• Team Management
  • Hire, onboard, and develop the Customer Engineers
  • Set clear goals and growth plans for the team
  • Own performance management, which includes calibration and feedback
  • Manage team capacity and workload distribution across tickets and projects
• Technical Ownership
  • Step into complex tickets and escalations
  • Serve as the final technical escalation point when a Senior CE needs backup
  • Draft, review, and merge PRs where applicable
• Quality and Trend Analysis
  • QA a sample of tickets regularly to ensure resolution quality, tone and adherence to playbooks
  • Track recurring issues and support trends across the team to update processes, tooling or documentation
  • Report on team health metrics (resolution time, ticket volume, escalation rates) to leadership
• Process and Enablement
  • Build and maintain the team’s operating rhythm - ticket triage, escalation paths, on‑call coverage
  • Own troubleshooting playbooks, onboarding guides, and internal documentation
  • Identify where AI or automation can reduce manual ticket work and drive adoption
• Cross‑Functional Partnership
  • Represent Customer Engineering in planning and prioritization discussions with Engineering and Product
  • Advocate for customer‑driven product improvements based on patterns the team surfaces

Qualifications / Requirements

• 5+ years in a customer‑facing technical role (Customer Engineering, Technical Support, Solutions Engineering, or similar) with hands‑on experience troubleshooting production issues for enterprise customers
• 2+ years directly managing a technical team, with accountability for hiring, performance management, and career development
• Comfortable reading code across our stack, with a habit of continuously learning the product deeply enough to identify root cause and hold credible technical conversations with Engineering.
• Working knowledge of Git‑based workflows, CI/CD, and standard engineering practices (code review, testing, deployment)
• Track record of using ticket and support trend data to drive concrete process, tooling, or documentation improvements
• Experience partnering cross‑functionally with Engineering and Product, translating customer patterns into actionable feedback
• Strong written and verbal communication; comfortable serving as the final technical escalation point on high‑stakes customer issues

Nice to Have

• Experience in a B2B SaaS or developer tooling company, ideally supporting technical personas (engineers, platform teams, SREs)
• Experience building or improving support tooling, automation, or AI‑assisted workflows
• Experience scaling a support or customer engineering team through a growth stage

Compensation

• Starting Salary Range: $150,000 - $175,000
• Competitive Equity Package

Perks & Benefits

• National medical, dental & vision insurance (we cover 100% for employees!)
• Unlimited PTO & flexible working hours
• 401k plan
• Gender‑neutral parental leave
• $1000 yearly Learning & Development stipend
• $400 monthly perks stipend (use it on anything)
• Pet Insurance

Cortex is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Cortex is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status. For individuals with disabilities who would like to request an accommodation, please email [e-mail]