Platform Support Engineer

Critical Manufacturing is dedicated to empowering high-performance operations to make Industry 4.0 a reality with the most innovative, comprehensive, and modular MES software. We have a global presence, but our headquarters, and the main technical center, are in Porto (Maia), Portugal, where we develop a state-of-the-art solution for Semiconductor, Electronics, Life Sciences, and Industrial Equipment. 

Recognized as a Leader by Gartner, we are part of ASMPT, the world's largest supplier of best-in-class equipment, and technological process partner for the electronics and semiconductor industries. 

The Role

We are seeking a Platform Support Engineer to reinforce our MES delivery capabilities across high‑tech manufacturing environments. You will support the deployment and operation of mission‑critical MES installations, ensuring they run securely, efficiently and at scale.

In this role, you’ll bridge complex technical deployments with the performance and reliability our customers expect, enabling fully digital and stable production environments. You will work closely with our Deployment Support and Customer teams to install, configure, troubleshoot and optimize MES setups, ensuring smooth transitions into operation and long‑term stability.

What You Will Do

Lead deployments of MES and application environments

• Execute remote installations of MES environments and applications
• Validate pre‑conditions, dependencies, and compatibility before deployment
• Ensure smooth, structured, and auditable installation flows

Manage environment governance and access

• Control and grant access according to governance policies
• Enforce environmental limits, quotas, and expiration rules
• Ensure secure and compliant access workflows across teams and customers
• Optimize and scale MES environments
• Monitor resource consumption (CPU, memory, storage, cluster health)
• Identify scaling needs and perform capacity adjustments
• Guarantee highly stable, performant and cost‑efficient environments

Deploy and support solutions in DMZ environments

• Execute deployments in DMZ or restricted network zones
• Validate firewall, routing, reverse proxy and TLS configurations
• Ensure ongoing availability, compliance, and secure connectivity

Troubleshoot complex deployment issues

• Investigate problems using logs, containers, pods, events, and system traces
• Collaborate with engineering, SRE, and infrastructure teams when required
• Resolve installation and post‑installation issues with a root‑cause mindset rather than temporary workarounds

Provide infrastructure consulting

• Advise partners and customers on best practices for infrastructure, virtualization, container platforms, and network setups
• Clarify responsibilities between internal teams, integrators, and customers to reduce risks and deployment delays

Drive continuous improvement

• Document lessons learned and corrective/preventive actions
• Contribute to internal knowledge bases, troubleshooting playbooks, and evolving best practices
• Help improve automation, observability, and deployment tooling

What You Will Bring

• Strong experience with Docker and Kubernetes/OpenShift: containerized deployments, pod troubleshooting, logs, events, networking, health checks
• Solid background in Linux (networking, volumes, system services, journaling)
• Hands‑on experience with VMware or Hyper‑V (VM provisioning, configuration, snapshots)
• Strong problem‑solving and investigative skills, with a methodical, log‑oriented approach
• Ability to troubleshoot beyond standard procedures, going deep when needed
• Strong organization, time‑management, and prioritization skills
• High attention to detail, ownership, and accountability
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work cross‑functionally
• Initiative and a drive for continuous improvement and best practices adoption
• Excellent written and spoken English communication skills

What we consider a plus (not mandatory)

• Experience with Kafka or ClickHouse in distributed deployments
• Familiarity with the Manufacturing / MES / industrial domain (Semiconductor, Electronics, Medical Devices, Industrial Equipment)
• Experience with SQL Server, including backup/restore, high availability, and performance considerations
• Knowledge of the ITIL framework, particularly related to change, incident, and problem management
• Exposure to data platforms for operational reporting, analytics, dashboards, or log aggregation
• Experience working with reverse proxies, TLS certificates, and secure network architectures
• Understanding of DevOps‑adjacent tools, such as CI/CD pipelines, monitoring and observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK), or scripting for automation (PowerShell, Bash)