Support Engineer (APAC)

Job Description

Who We Are

We’re the team behind Matrix—the leading project for secure, open decentralized communication, and Element— the all-in-one secure chat app for teams, friends and organisations. Our mission is to make messaging as open as email— allowing everyone to choose where their data is hosted, enjoy private conversations and ultimately be in control of their own communication.

Element offers a modern messaging app with the expected usual features - real-time messaging with public and private rooms, direct messages, voice, video and screen sharing but also with advanced ones like End to End Encryption, a federated architecture, available as a cloud or on-premise solution and based on an opened standard. Bridges, bots, and widgets complement the offering to connect silo messaging apps like Teams, Slack, Discord, Telegram into the element network, to manage data retention or enrich the user experience.

Our main commercial targets are Governments and the enterprise segment. Element also runs the largest public matrix server, home of more than 12 millions users out of the 40 millions total users currently.

In July 2021, we raised another $30 million in Series-B funding . We’re at the cusp of Element uncontrollably exploding across our computers and phones in much the same manner that Netscape once did in the early days of the Web - or email did over the early Internet. The world has truly woken up to the age of decentralised communication.

We build things for everyone, and we know we can’t succeed without a diverse team. Our hiring process is designed to be respectful and give candidates the best chance to show us what you can do.

If we ever fall down on this, please let us know.

The Role

The Support Engineer provides a first line point of technical contact for Element managed services and associated open-source projects.

As Element's new Support Engineer, the role will be very broad and will stretch from technical pre-sales through to hands on technical support for our customers. In some cases fixing problems directly yourself, in other cases seeking support from the rest of the team and occasionally championing changes to the product itself to improve the user experience.

Depending on the candidate, it is possible that the role could include some software development in the form of writing scripts to automate tasks and performing more complex analysis. As such this role could be an excellent route into a software development in the future.

Requirements

The most important thing is that you believe passionately in the mission of decentralisation of the internet. More specifically that you believe that communications should not be centralised in the hands of a small number of very large organisations and instead individuals should control their own data and choose who they share it with.

Additionally we are looking for someone who is:

• smart, curious and enthusiastic
• an articulate communicator who takes great pleasure in helping others
• empathetic, with both their colleagues and the end user
• Is comfortable with the pace, trade offs and ambiguity of an early stage startup (specifically: how to take care of yourself and get your work done without working crazy hours).

Your experience

The only hard requirement for the role is that you have sufficient technical background to understand the product and protocol. This means hands on familiarity with Linux, SQL and HTTP. If you run linux at home or have ever hosted any of your own software you’ll likely meet the required level. Technical requirements aside this is really a role about clear communication and problem solving, much of the assessment process will focus on these skills. Additionally it would be nice if any of the following are true.

• An interest in writing more generally, it could be a blog, or perhaps you write creatively.
• Pre existing knowledge of the matrix protocol, perhaps you have used Riot.im before?
• An interest in open source technology, especially if you are involved with a specific community somehow.
• An interest in messaging technology generally.
• Knowledge of a scripting language.

Benefits

People tend to stay with the company for a long time, we take this as a sign that we have a cohesive, supportive culture, that we have engaging challenging work and that people can develop their skills and careers here for the long term. We also have a family friendly environment, many of the team have small children and we look to accommodate that as best we can. Since our technology is relevant to anything that requires real-time comms, the role provides exposure to a wide range of domains from web and app dev through to VR, VoIP and IoT.

Our package generally contains:

• Private Health Insurance
• Pension
• Annual Bonus
• Share Options
• Home Office Allowance
• Coworking Space Allowance
• Annual leave (40 days including local bank holidays)
• Company Socials (virtual or in person)
• Annual Global Offsite
• Plumm Health (mental health platform)

You can find a more detailed explanation here and you might be eligible for other benefits depending on your location.

Currently we can consider applicants, from these countries: Australia, India, New Zealand

Element does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, colour, religion, age, national origin, marital status, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other reason prohibited by law in provision of employment opportunities and benefits.