Lead Sustaining Engineer

AutoStore

$110K — $130K *
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years of experience in software development, preferably in a leadership role.
  • Proficiency in .NET for debugging and reading code in live production environments.
  • Experience with software development methodologies and debugging tools.
  • Strong ability to analyze, problem-solve, and implement fixes with minimal guidance.
  • Excellent communication skills, capable of conveying technical issues clearly to stakeholders.
  • Proven leadership capability in mentoring junior engineers and guiding contract resources.
  • Willing to engage in a rotating on-call schedule for incident management.

Responsibilities

  • Lead the Sustaining function, prioritizing tasks and overseeing junior engineers' work.
  • Manage escalated customer issues, ensuring timely resolution within defined service levels.
  • Examine and review fixes from junior staff to maintain high-quality standards before customer release.
  • Investigate customer-reported issues independently, utilizing various methodologies to diagnose root causes.
  • Participate in coordinating the on-call rotation for production incidents and conducting post-incident reviews.
  • Create and maintain thorough technical documentation to aid Tier 1 support teams in issue resolution.
  • Collaborate across departments to address recurring defects and improve product reliability.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision plans
  • Health Savings Account (HSA) with employer contributions
  • Generous Paid Time Off including 12 holidays and additional paid leave for exercise, volunteering, and parental leave
  • Retirement 401(k) plan with employer match and profit sharing
  • Educational assistance and professional development opportunities including industry mentorship programs
  • Additional benefits like Group Life Insurance, Disability Insurance, and Employee Assistance programs.
Full Job Description
The Role

This role serves as the functional lead for the Sustaining function, directing the day-to-day work of junior engineers and contract resources - including task assignment, prioritization, and quality review. It does not carry formal HR reporting responsibility.

Key Tasks and Responsibilities:
  • Serve as technical lead for the Sustaining function, owning intake, triage, prioritization, and resolution of escalated (Tier 2) customer issues.


  • Deliver clean, well-tested defect fixes, patches, and maintenance releases following best practices and coding standards.


  • Review fixes authored by junior engineers and contractors, gating patch quality and assessing regression risk before release to customers.


  • Independently investigate customer-reported defects - analyzing logs, telemetry, crash dumps, and field data to isolate root cause and implement a durable fix.


  • Drive rapid resolution of incoming customer issues against defined response and resolution service-level targets, escalating to Tier 3 or engineering owners when required.


  • Participate in and coordinate the on-call rotation, leading response for high-severity production incidents and completing post-incident reviews.


  • Develop and maintain technical documentation, root-cause write-ups, known-error records, and knowledge-base articles that enable Tier 1 to resolve issues without escalation.


  • Mentor, direct, and review the work of junior engineers and contract resources, assigning cases and building their diagnostic capability.


  • Partner with Customer Support, Quality, and Product Engineering to reproduce issues, feed recurring defects into the product backlog, and prevent repeat escalations.


  • Analyze case and defect trends to identify systemic problems, and propose engineering or process changes that reduce escalation volume over time.


  • Proactively identify and pursue improvements to the application without being asked - self-directed investigation of the codebase, telemetry, and support history to surface reliability, performance, usability, and supportability weaknesses before they generate customer escalations.


  • Build the business case for those improvements - scoping, sizing, and prioritizing optimization and hardening work, then implementing it directly or driving it into the product backlog through to release.


Key Requirements:

  • Proficiency in .NET, with the ability to read and debug unfamiliar code in a live production codebase.


  • Strong understanding of software development methodologies and hands-on proficiency with debugging, log analysis, and observability/monitoring tooling.


  • Strong independent problem solver - able to work from incomplete data, form and test hypotheses, determine true root cause, and drive the fix to closure with minimal direction.


  • Strong communication skills, including the ability to explain technical status and root cause clearly to customers and stakeholders during active incidents.


  • Proven ability to lead, mentor, and direct the work of junior engineers and contract resources.


  • Willingness and availability to participate in a rotating on-call schedule.


  • Demonstrated ownership and composure under pressure - able to manage several concurrent escalations, judge severity correctly, and keep customers informed while the investigation is still open.


  • Highly self-motivated and proactive - sets own improvement agenda, digs into the product unprompted, and consistently brings forward optimizations rather than waiting for direction.


We Offer:

AutoStore believes in taking care of employees and is dedicated to providing a supportive and rewarding work environment. Join us in our mission to store and move things for everyone, everywhere.
  • Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision plans
  • Health Savings Account (HSA) with a company contribution
  • Generous Paid Time Off including 12 holidays, paid exercise time, paid volunteer time, and paid parental leave plans for all new parents
  • Retirement 401(k) plan with employer match and discretionary profit sharing contribution
  • Educational assistance and professional development programs, including mentorship/coaching programs with external industry leaders
  • Additional benefits include Group Life Insurance, Voluntary Additional Life Insurance, Disability Insurance, Employee Assistance programs, and more!


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