Customer Support Engineer

Summary

PlanetScale is a database platform company offering Postgres and Vitess clusters for large-scale data workloads. The Customer Support Engineer will advise customers and developers, debug and resolve technical issues, explain database and application behavior, create support documentation, and partner with Engineering to improve the product and support function.

Responsibilities

• You will advise and handle support requests from customers and developers on the PlanetScale platform
• You will respond to, debug, and resolve customer support issues through support tickets, customer Slack channels, public discussions, and other support channels
• You will help customers understand how to use PlanetScale effectively, including how to reason about queries, schema changes, application behavior, database connectivity, and production workflows
• You will create and improve internal and external documentation, support playbooks, troubleshooting guides, and customer-facing materials
• You will identify product gaps and recurring sources of customer friction, then work with Engineering to prioritize improvements
• You will contribute to the systems, processes, and practices that help PlanetScale deliver excellent developer-focused support at scale

Skills

• You are customer-focused, empathetic, and clear in how you communicate, while knowing when to push back in ways that help customers become successful on their own
• You have excellent debugging and troubleshooting skills, with the curiosity and persistence to follow issues across applications, databases, infrastructure, and product behavior
• You are comfortable stepping outside your comfort zone. Whether that means reading unfamiliar application code, digging into database behavior, testing a new framework, or learning a connector you haven't used before, you're willing to go where the problem leads
• You are a self-starting, enthusiastic individual who takes responsibility for outcomes and wants to make a meaningful impact on the business
• You can operate independently, but you know when to ask for help and how to bring the right people into an issue
• You are highly organized and able to operate in ambiguous or changing situations
• You are data-driven, team-oriented, and comfortable communicating across many audiences
• You enjoy working cross-functionally and translating customer pain into actionable product, documentation, and process improvements
• Experience supporting production applications, databases, developer tools, infrastructure, or other technical products
• Working knowledge of SQL, preferably with experience in MySQL and/or PostgreSQL
• Strong debugging skills and the ability to reason through application and database behavior
• Programming experience. You will not be programming full-time, but you should be comfortable reading and navigating unfamiliar code to understand customer issues
• Experience with common application frameworks, ORMs, database connectors, or application deployment patterns
• Willingness to explore new languages, frameworks, tools, and customer environments as needed
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Strong empathy for customers, developers, and teammates, with the ability to advocate for customer needs clearly and constructively
• Experience working in a remote organization
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure
• Knowledge of monitoring, observability, and debugging tools
• Experience helping build support processes, documentation systems, or teams from an early stage

Qualifications

Must Haves

• You are customer-focused, empathetic, and clear in how you communicate, while knowing when to push back in ways that help customers become successful on their own
• You have excellent debugging and troubleshooting skills, with the curiosity and persistence to follow issues across applications, databases, infrastructure, and product behavior
• You are comfortable stepping outside your comfort zone. Whether that means reading unfamiliar application code, digging into database behavior, testing a new framework, or learning a connector you haven't used before, you're willing to go where the problem leads
• You are a self-starting, enthusiastic individual who takes responsibility for outcomes and wants to make a meaningful impact on the business
• You can operate independently, but you know when to ask for help and how to bring the right people into an issue
• You are highly organized and able to operate in ambiguous or changing situations
• You are data-driven, team-oriented, and comfortable communicating across many audiences
• You enjoy working cross-functionally and translating customer pain into actionable product, documentation, and process improvements
• Experience supporting production applications, databases, developer tools, infrastructure, or other technical products
• Working knowledge of SQL, preferably with experience in MySQL and/or PostgreSQL
• Strong debugging skills and the ability to reason through application and database behavior
• Programming experience. You will not be programming full-time, but you should be comfortable reading and navigating unfamiliar code to understand customer issues
• Experience with common application frameworks, ORMs, database connectors, or application deployment patterns
• Willingness to explore new languages, frameworks, tools, and customer environments as needed
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Strong empathy for customers, developers, and teammates, with the ability to advocate for customer needs clearly and constructively

Nice to Haves

• Experience working in a remote organization
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure
• Knowledge of monitoring, observability, and debugging tools
• Experience helping build support processes, documentation systems, or teams from an early stage