Field Support Engineer

Our Mission  

SPAN is enabling electrification for all ⚡

We are a mission-driven company designing, building, and deploying products that electrify the built environment, reduce carbon emissions, and slow the effects of climate change.

• Decarbonization is the process to reduce or remove greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, from entering our atmosphere.

• Electrification is the process of replacing fossil fuel appliances that run on gas or oil with all-electric upgrades for a cleaner way to power our lives.

At SPAN, we believe in:

• Enabling homes and vehicles powered by clean energy

• Making electrification upgrades possible

• Building more resilient homes with reliable backup

• Designing a flexible and distributed electrical grid

The Role

Want to save the world from climate change? And to ride in with a superhero cape to solve tricky customer issues? If you love the adventure of working for a fast-paced startup and enjoy solving new challenges each day, look no further. SPAN is hiring a Service Engineer.

Sitting within SPAN’s Operations group and reporting to our Service Engineering Manager, you will join a team of fellow Field Engineers. The Service Engineering team has two charters. One is to be the Tier 3 escalation point for our Tier 1 and 2 customer support team for resolving technically complex product issues in the field. The second is to manage our field service dispatches by coordinating with installers and homeowners.

Your objective is to deliver excellent service to our technically-minded installers and our non-technical homeowner customers. You will need to be a strong partner to customer support and a bridge to various engineering teams all while driving technically challenging issues to resolution with a strong sense of urgency. A SPAN Field Support Engineer is patient, has a generalist’s mindset, and is an excellent technical problem solver.

Responsibilities

Troubleshooting and customer service

• Respond within the agreed upon timeframe (SLA) to issues escalated from Tier 1 and 2 and to responses from customers

• Shepherd issues through to resolution with a sense of urgency, coordinating with all the necessary partners, including support, engineering, customers, and installers.

• Collaborate with teammates on handling challenging troubleshooting issues

• Participate in feedback loops (e.g. retrospectives) with Engineering and Customer Support

• Use non GUI product access paths and tools (SSH, CLI) for higher level troubleshooting

• Create and run basic scripts and light coding for queries into the product and various databases

• Using a systems mindset, mine data and coalesce multiple site issues into one coherent problem statement

• Build deep technical knowledge of our products and continuously deepen your own technical skills

• Document and teach what you know to fellow Service Engineers

• Embrace a continuous improvement mindset and suggest ways for the team to improve. This might mean suggesting new features for our internal troubleshooting tools, improvements to our core products, or changes to our SOPs

• Contribute to the build out of out our library of troubleshooting documentation

• Coordinate with your teammates to ensure we hit our coverage targets

Service Operations

• Create and manage field service cases in Salesforce

• Shepherd field issues through to resolution with a sense of urgency, coordinating with all the necessary partners, including support, engineering, and 3rd party installers.

• Contribute to the build out of our library of service dispatch/truck roll documentation and internal SOPs

• Support our failure analysis efforts by thoughtfully making RMA decisions and managing the prompt return and replacement of RMAed products, coordinating with our quality and reverse logistics teams as necessary

• Assist in managing service parts inventory, including receiving shipments of service parts inventory

• Ship out service parts to the field from our San Francisco-based headquarters

• Represent the voice of the field (installers) in internal conversations, advocating for product serviceability and install-ability

About You 

Required Qualifications

• Have 2+ years of experience as a service engineer, product support engineer, or similar role

• Have experience working within a ticketing tool (e.g. Zendesk, JIRA, Salesforce, etc.)

• Are an excellent problem solver and possess a demonstrated ability to solve complex technical problems with a sense of urgency

• Easily adapt your communication for different audiences (highly technical vs not technical)

• Are deeply empathetic, enjoy speaking with customers, and bring a customer orientation to your work

• Enjoy being a generalist and having your hands in a bit of everything

• Bring an entrepreneurial spirit and a love of problem solving to every challenge you encounter

• Are detail oriented, organized, and reliable. You do what you say you’re going to do and understand the importance of being the last point of escalation

• Are a strong communicator, both written and verbally

• Have a continuous improvement mindset

• Are a voracious learner on all subjects and enjoy knowing a little bit about a lot of things

• Are very scrappy and have a knack for excelling in complex and ambiguous situations

• Are willing and able to be based in our San Francisco office at least 3 days a week

Bonus Qualifications

• Have worked previously in Zendesk and/or Salesforce

• Technical troubleshooting experience with software and hardware products

• Spent time in the field troubleshooting and/or repairing complex products

• Experience working as or with electricians

• Experience troubleshooting networking equipment/connected devices

• An understanding of solar, residential energy storage, embedded electronics, power electronics, AC and DC power, and/or electric vehicle service equipment (EVSE)

• Experience with databases and creating software tools for automated analysis (SQL, python)

• Experience troubleshooting networking issues and/or IoT devices

• Experience working in Linux systems

• Experience with SQL and command line interfaces

Life at SPAN

Headquartered in San Francisco’s vibrant SoMa neighborhood, we are an eclectic group of creative thinkers who value open communication, teamwork, and a ‘make it happen’ approach to addressing complex challenges. 

SPAN embraces diversity and equal opportunity in a serious way. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. 

We’re hiring talented individuals who are driven by success and are passionate about shaping the future of renewable energy. If that sounds like you, we’d love for you to consider joining the rapidly growing team at SPAN.

The Perks:

⚡ Competitive compensation + equity grants at a well-funded, venture-backed company

⚡ Comprehensive benefits: 100% employee premiums for base plans on medical, dental, vision with options for additional coverage.  Parental leave up to twenty four (24)  weeks depending on eligibility

⚡ Comfortable, sunny office space located near BART and Caltrain public transit

⚡ Strong focus on team building and company culture: Employee Resource Groups, monthly social events, SPANcakes recognition breakfast, lunch, and learns

⚡ Flexible hours, one holiday per month, and flexible time off

Interested in joining our team? Apply today and we’ll be in touch with the next steps!