Escalation Engineer

RJ Young•Nashville, TN

7h•Onsite

About The Position

The Escalation Engineer (Tier 3) owns complex technical issues end-to-end, restores services quickly, and reduces repeat incidents through root cause analysis, documentation, and standardization. This highly customer-facing role provides remote support to customer environments from the company office and performs hands-on staging, building, and testing as needed. It involves troubleshooting networking, servers and virtualization, and Microsoft 365 identity, while communicating clearly with non-technical stakeholders and SMB owners. The engineer is expected to listen actively, communicate calmly and professionally, explain technical issues in business terms, and provide proactive status updates. The role also leads small-to-mid-sized projects end to end, partners with project and account teams, and documents project scope, risks, and customer decisions. Thorough ticket notes, repeatable troubleshooting steps, and contributions to standard operating procedures and knowledge-base content are important.

Requirements

U.S. citizenship is required to support certain regulated customers and environments.
At least 5 years of IT support experience with proven escalation ownership at Tier 3 or equivalent.
Strong networking fundamentals, including VLANs, subnetting, DHCP/DNS, routing basics, and troubleshooting methodology.
Production firewall experience, including NAT, firewall rule sets, VPN troubleshooting, and change validation; Sophos is preferred.
Production experience with Windows Server and Active Directory fundamentals, including AD DS and DNS; basic GPO knowledge.
Microsoft 365 administration beyond user accounts, including identity and security fundamentals; Conditional Access knowledge is strongly preferred.
Strong customer-facing communication and active listening skills, with the ability to work directly with SMB owners.
Full-time availability, typically Monday through Friday during business hours, with occasional evening or weekend work and light on-call rotation.

Nice To Haves

MSP experience supporting multiple customers with differing standards and tooling.
Production experience with Ruckus (APs or switching) and/or Aruba (switching or wireless).
VMware and/or Hyper-V experience; Scale Computing familiarity or similar HCI experience.
PowerShell scripting or automation experience, including runbooks and repeatable fixes.
Compliance or security exposure, including CMMC, NIST, or CIS, and secure configuration practices.
Hands-on Sophos firewall experience; preferred platforms also include Ruckus, Aruba, Scale Computing, Hyper-V, and VMware.
Hybrid identity concepts and AD Connect basics, including common synchronization troubleshooting.
Ability to troubleshoot connectivity, roaming, and basic RF or coverage issues.

Responsibilities

Own complex Tier 3 technical issues end-to-end, restore services, and reduce repeat incidents through root cause analysis, documentation, and standardization.
Troubleshoot networking and firewalls, including VLANs, subnetting, DHCP, DNS, NAT, firewall rules, VPNs, and end-to-end traffic flow.
Turn up switches and access points, configure VLANs and SSIDs, and troubleshoot connectivity, roaming, and basic RF or coverage issues in mixed-vendor environments.
Stage and deploy equipment in the office, including racking, stacking, powering, labeling, patching, uplink validation, console access, baseline configuration, and cutover validation or rollback planning.
Troubleshoot VMware and/or Hyper-V hosts, virtual machine performance and availability, and basic networking and storage issues.
Administer and troubleshoot Windows Server, including roles and features, patching, backups and restore concepts, and common issues.
Support Microsoft 365 and identity services, including MFA, Conditional Access, hybrid identity, and escalation-level troubleshooting across Exchange Online, Teams, and SharePoint fundamentals.
Communicate technical issues and status clearly to SMB owners and other non-technical stakeholders.
Lead small-to-mid-sized projects end-to-end in partnership with project and account teams, documenting scope, risks, and customer decisions.
Maintain thorough ticket notes and repeatable troubleshooting steps, and contribute to standard operating procedures and knowledge-base content.
Participate in a light on-call rotation and perform occasional after-hours work for critical incidents, maintenance windows, or cutovers.
Make onsite customer visits when required by specific contracts, cutovers, or escalations.