Software Development Lead - Escalations

Sustained Engineering Lead

This is an onsite in person role. Only candidates who are able to commute to our offices in Eagle, ID will be considered.

About the Role

We are looking for a Sustained Engineering Lead who thrives at the intersection of deep technical expertise, high ROI execution and direct client impact. This is not a passive, ticket-routing role — it's a hands-on, high-ownership position for an engineer who wants to own an entire lane of operation: from the moment a client escalation lands, through solutioning, to the moment a permanent fix ships. You partner directly with our head of Client Success, and Product, write code, and be a driving force in the stability, quality, and long-term reliability of our product.

What You'll Own

• Client Escalations — Be the technical anchor for critical and high-priority client issues. You are the person the team looks to when an issue is in the code, in the data, urgent, or cross-functional.
• Triage and own full lifecycle of Escalations – Partner with head of Customer Success and Product, using your technical, consulting, and investigation skills to verify, triage, prioritize, investigate, resolve and deliver solutions to the pipeline of requests.
• Root Cause Analysis — Conduct deep-dive investigations into production issues, defects, and systemic failures. Don't just fix the symptom — find the source and eliminate it.
• Resolution & Code Fixes — Write, review, and ship code. You are expected to be a hands-on contributor who can diagnose and resolve issues directly in the codebase, not simply delegate to others.
• Client Relationships — Engage directly with clients and client-facing teams during escalations. Communicate with clarity, empathy, and technical credibility.
• Quality & Reliability Improvement — Identify patterns in escalations and defects, and drive systemic improvements that reduce recurrence across the product.
• Process & Standards — Define and refine how the sustaining engineering function operates — triage processes, escalation playbooks, SLA adherence, and post-mortems.

Responsibilities

• Take full ownership of client escalations from intake through resolution, including direct client communication and internal coordination.
• Conduct thorough investigation and root cause analysis of reported defects, regressions, and production incidents.
• Write production-quality code and tests to deliver bug fixes, patches, and workarounds on tight timelines without sacrificing long-term code health.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, QA, and Support teams to triage, prioritize, and resolve client-impacting issues.
• Reproduce and isolate client-reported issues across diverse environments, configurations, and data sets.
• Document findings, resolutions, and known issues in a clear, reusable manner for internal and client-facing knowledge bases.
• Contribute to and enforce coding standards, review practices, and testing requirements within the sustaining engineering function.
• Mentor and guide junior and mid-level sustaining engineers; set the technical bar for the team.
• Proactively identify and address technical debt and fragile areas of the codebase that drive disproportionate client issues.
• Participate in on-call rotation for critical client escalations as needed.

What We're Looking For

Must-Haves

• 5+ years of software engineering experience, with a demonstrated track record in sustaining, support engineering, or a closely related discipline.
• Strong, hands-on coding ability — you write code daily and are comfortable diving into unfamiliar codebases quickly. Our stack is .NET, C#, TypeScript, Elastic, Redis, and SQL Server.
• Deep ownership mindset — you drive issues to resolution, follow through without being asked, and are accountable for outcomes, not just effort.
• Proven experience handling client escalations in a technical capacity, including direct client communication under pressure.
• Expert-level debugging and troubleshooting skills — log analysis, profiling, memory/thread analysis, distributed system tracing, etc.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to translate complex technical findings into clear summaries for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced environment and manage multiple high-priority issues simultaneously.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience with recruiting solutions, ATS, CRM or other similar of records.
• Familiarity with observability and tracking tooling (e.g., Datadog and Azure DevOps).
• Background in QA, reliability engineering, or DevOps practices.
• Experience managing a Kanban style pipeline of tickets and resolving issues using code, processes, and consultative bedside manner..

How You'll Be Measured

• Speed and quality of resolution for client escalations.
• Reduction in repeat/recurring client issues over time.
• Code quality and test coverage of fixes shipped.
• Client and internal stakeholder satisfaction during escalations.
• Contributions to sustaining engineering process improvements.

Why This Role

This role carries real weight. You won't be buried under process or abstracted away from the work that matters. You'll have direct influence on client experience, direct access to the codebase, and the authority to drive change. If you want to own something meaningful and see the direct results of your work — this is the role for you.

What We Offer:

• Results-driven organization, with reasonably flexible work hours
• Plenty of opportunities to learn, grow your career, and wear lots of hats.
• Startup life – flexible, relaxed, yet high stakes work environment
• Awesome coworkers who care about their work and each other
• Competitive benefits including:
• Flexible spending and dependent care accounts
• Medical, Dental and Vision coverage
• 401k with matching
• Long and short-term disability insurance
• A life insurance policy
• A generous paid leave policy, which includes up to 14 days of office holidays (including a company-wide winter break)
• Paid parental leave
• And for team members who excel, stock option grants.