Customer Support Manager

Chainguard

13d • $140,000 - $165,000 • Remote

About The Position

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk. The role, in a nutshell: You will manage the AMER Technical Support Engineering team, part of a broader global follow-the-sun support organization under the Engineering organization. Your primary accountability is the quality and reliability of the escalation path: from customer-reported issue to engineering resolution. You own the operational layer between L2 and L3, which means you think about ticket routing, escalation criteria, handoff quality, and engineering capacity as an interconnected system, not as separate concerns. This role is for an engineering-minded Support Manager with deep technical knowledge and strong customer relationship skills -- someone who can drive rigorous engineering outcomes while delivering an exceptional customer experience.

Requirements

• 4+ years managing technical support engineers or software engineers in a production-facing environment
• Demonstrated ability to design and operate an escalation process: not just follow one
• Technical credibility in the Linux ecosystem; comfortable reading logs, understanding container runtimes, and engaging with engineering teams as an active peer
• Strong written communication; capable of writing clear escalation summaries, retrospective reports, and leadership-facing metrics briefs
• Track record of developing engineers through real feedback, structured growth plans, and calibrated performance conversations
• Comfort operating in a globally distributed support org with peer managers in other regions; strong handoff discipline

Nice To Haves

• Experience with container security, DevSecOps tooling, Kubernetes, or open source software ecosystems
• Familiarity with Zendesk or similar ticketing platforms at an operational level (workflows, configuration, reporting)
• Exposure to AI-assisted support tooling, LLM-based triage, or knowledge retrieval systems

Responsibilities

• Own the L2/L3 escalation boundary: define routing criteria, review escalation quality, and drive down unnecessary L3 load without increasing customer time-to-resolution
• Maintain and improve escalation intake workflows including triage standards, ticket hygiene, and handoff artifacts for engineering partners
• Track escalation health metrics and report on trends to engineering leadership; identify capacity risks in eng teams before they become bottlenecks
• Run escalation retrospectives to close the loop on resolution patterns and feed signal back into product and documentation
• Manage, coach, support and develop the AMER Technical Support Engineering team, with direct attention to technical depth and debugging rigor
• Operate career leveling frameworks for IC growth (L1 through L6); hold bar on promotions and ensure growth plans are actionable
• Coordinate AMER handoffs with APAC and EMEA peer managers to maintain follow-the-sun coverage quality: clear ownership at every handoff, with uninterrupted SLA performance
• Identify and close skill gaps proactively, particularly in Linux fundamentals, container security, and Kubernetes ecosystems
• Own the support tooling stack including ticketing systems, AI-assisted triage, and deflection tooling
• Partner with engineering to build and maintain LLM-assisted workflows for escalation intake, ticket quality review, and knowledge retrieval
• Drive adoption of AI tooling across the team; know where automation adds leverage and where it introduces risk
• Use support data to surface product quality signals and operational trends to engineering and product leadership
• Serve as the primary interface between Technical Support Engineering and product engineering teams for escalated issues
• Maintain a functional relationship with Customer Success and GTM without allowing those teams to define support quality standards or escalation criteria
• Contribute to product feedback loops through reproducible, well-scoped bug reports and actionable pattern analysis

Benefits

• Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs.
• Receive stock options upon hire and promotion. Plus, you can participate in secondary offerings and have 10 years to exercise your options
• We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents. Nothing comes out of your paycheck.
• Take the time you need – to do our best work, we need to recharge and reset.
• 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents, with the option to use it all at once or throughout your child's first year.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed