Support Engineer (SF)

Plain; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

A cutting-edge customer support firm is seeking a Support Engineer in their San Francisco office. You will own the support queue during business hours, driving issues from investigation to resolution while also enhancing the customer experience. The ideal candidate has experience in a B2B SaaS environment, strong technical skills, and proactive communication abilities. This role requires being in the office at least 3 days a week, ensuring close collaboration with the team.

Qualifications

• Experience as a Support Engineer in a B2B SaaS company.
• Ability to read logs, write SQL, and understand systems.
• Strong initiative and curiosity in problem-solving.

Responsibilities

• Own the support queue during SF hours.
• Drive issues from investigation to resolution.
• Partner closely with Product and Engineering.

Skills

Support Engineering experience

Technical proficiency (SQL, APIs)

Proactive communication

Problem-solving skills

Understanding customer context

Job description

Overview

Plain is redefining customer support for the next generation of B2B companies. We're building the fastest, most powerful platform to help companies move beyond reactive support and build real customer relationships.

We are a small, tight‑knit team in San Francisco and London, with teammates across Europe. This role is based in our San Francisco office, with an expectation of 3+ days a week in person.

Role

As one of our Support Engineers, you will be a clear owner of support during SF hours and a key member of a growing support function. You will combine technical depth, strong judgment, and proactive communication to ensure customers and the rest of the company always feel support is under control.

What you’ll do

• Be the primary owner of the support queue during SF hours, ensuring customers get timely, thoughtful responses, even when the answer isn’t immediately clear.
• Be "customer zero" for the product: represent the voice of real support teams, identifying what works, what doesn’t, and what’s missing.
• Drive issues end‑to‑end: investigate, debug, coordinate with engineering, and follow through until resolution.
• Own a clean, visible handover between EU and US timezones so nothing drops on the floor.
• Proactively flag risk early (backlogs building, customer frustration, L2 pressure, product bugs).
• Help define and evolve how we do support: ownership models, handover norms, escalation standards, documentation, and tooling.
• Improve our Help Center and self‑serve experience to reduce repeat questions and scale quality.
• Partner closely with Product, Customer Success, and Engineering as a sounding board when scoping and designing features.

This is a great fit if you…

• Have experience as a Support Engineer in an early‑stage or scaling B2B SaaS company.
• Are technically strong: you can read logs, write SQL, understand APIs, webhooks, and how systems work under the hood.
• Take initiative by default — you don’t wait to be told what to own. You ask questions, you’re curious, and you’re constantly looking for opportunities to optimize your own work.
• Communicate clearly and proactively, especially when things are messy or high‑pressure.
• Have strong opinions about support products and practices, and enjoy improving them.
• Are commercially minded and understand customer context (Tier, lifecycle stage, sentiment, impact).
• Thrive in ambiguity and love to solve problems — the power of Plain is the ability to extend it. You think creatively and love finding different ways to solve a customer's use case.

This won’t be the right role if you…

• Prefer to spend most of your day coding rather than working directly with customers.
• Need well‑defined processes before you can operate confidently.
• Are uncomfortable making judgment calls and owning outcomes.
• Are looking for a people‑management role right now.
• Expect the pace, perks, or structure of a large, established company.
• Aren’t interested in working in person or up for early mornings — this role is based in SF, and we work together in the office at least 3 days a week. We tend to start earlier in the day (7:30/8 am or so).

Compensation

Compensation Range: $150K - $180K