Senior Support Engineer, Caper

OVERVIEW

ABOUT THE ROLE

As a senior support engineer, you provide enterprise-level technical assistance to our customers and colleagues. Troubleshooting problems and helping install applications to ensure a high-quality customer experience. You also need to be innovative in problem-solving, adapt to new processes, and handle a large number of requests efficiently. Instacart’s goal has always been to support grocers and give retailers of all sizes an edge in an increasingly competitive industry while creating a seamless experience for customers and shoppers. With Caper.ai, we bring together online and offline shopping to create an entirely new in-store shopping experience for both customers and Instacart shoppers alike. To be successful in this role, you should have extensive experience in resolving network issues, creating scripts to automate deployment and support operations, configuring hardware and software for different types of devices (e.g., Linux, Android), and providing immediate support. In the meanwhile, you must also be an innovator, learner, and team player, which helps create and maintain updated documentation and streamline processes.

ABOUT THE TEAM

Caper.ai is a subsidiary of Instacart and an AI company. It leverages cutting-edge AI and computer vision technology to bring the autonomous shopping experience to in-store. 

Its product, the Caper Cart - an AI-powered smart cart equipped with scales, sensors, touchscreens, and computer vision technology, is the cornerstone of the Instacart Platform Connected Stores initiative.  

Caper builds smart shopping carts powered by deep learning and computer vision to enable a seamless grab-and-go retail experience. Caper’s unique technology is a plug-and-play solution that does not require retail store renovation, operational overhaul, heavy computing, and endless image labeling & training. Retailers purchase intelligent shopping carts, and the entire store is upgraded with cashier-less capabilities!

Caper is one of the fastest-growing retail automation technology products in the market, costs less than 1% of our competition’s infrastructure, and is already widely adopted in the marketplace. Our cross-functional and durable Product team solves hard customer & business problems in ways our customers love.

ABOUT THE JOB

You will:

• Create documentation of troubleshooting steps and instructions to ensure consistency, efficiency, and standardization within the company for future reference. 
• Collaborate with technicians and offer technical guidance to non-technical individuals using easily understandable language, to effectively resolve issues together.
• Write scripts in a dynamic environment to achieve automation, be familiar with Git and similar version control systems to maintain a repository, and provide clear commit messages, and be proficient in using Bash commands to navigate a Linux environment without a GUI is necessary. 
• Use Jira for issue tracking, Confluence for documentation, and OpsGenie for tracking on-call coordination under an agile software development setting.
• Navigate cloud computing platforms like GCP and AWS, and use or learn various services within these platforms, especially knowledge of monitoring and analyzing logs, and managing assets in storage service. 
• Set up and configure multiple VPN solutions to establish remote connections to our products and support our clients. 
• Use Android debug bridge (ADB) to identify root causes and troubleshoot errors reading through Android logs and provide technical advice to clients or colleagues. 
• Have experience testing RESTful API endpoints using tools like Postman or gRPC endpoints using Kreya, and should have some basic knowledge of both relational databases like PostgreSQL and non-relational databases like MongoDB.
• Share technical expertise gained from on-the-ground operations with the engineering and QA teams to enhance their performance.
• Escalate complex tickets to the engineering team, providing detailed steps to replicate the issue and document the resolution for future reference.

ABOUT YOU

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• At least 5+ years of software support
• Experience supporting hardware products (e.g., robotics, consumer electronics, telecom equipment) and solid networking experience, especially troubleshooting client side issues
• Experience in configuration and troubleshooting 802.11 networks, enterprise auth/radius, firewalls, NAT/DHCP/DNS, VPN, tunneling solutions and ssh etc. 
• Be familiar with monitoring tools such as Datadog and packet analysis tools like Wireshark and Traceroute 
• Experience in programming or scripting to automate/build etc (shell or Python preferred)
• Experience with device configuration and new image/package deployments
• Experience with Linux and Android OS (e.g., package managers, rooting, configuration, driver installation, log managers)
• Experience with enterprise communications and ticket management. 
• Strong sense of ownership and ability to lead and mentor 
• Fast learner, and great problem-solving and analytical skills
• This role will require <15% travel in US & Canada and monthly on-call rotation

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent work experience
• Prior support engineering tech lead experience with 2+ members on the team 

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