Team Lead, Customer Engineering

About the role

Tailscale is establishing its customer engineering presence in Singapore and the wider APAC region. This role will initially be hands-on, focusing on resolving intricate networking challenges and ensuring an excellent customer experience. As the team expands, you will recruit and guide 1-3 Customer Engineers, influencing the team's culture, operational methods, and technical standards. This is a chance to build a function from its inception, lead by example, and contribute to global customer support coverage.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Lead the initial setup and growth of the customer engineering team in Singapore.
• Develop and implement the company's culture and operational guidelines for the new region.
• Oversee the daily support activities for a small team of 1-3 engineers.
• Recruit, train, mentor, and support the career development of your direct reports.
• Coordinate in-office time to encourage teamwork and establish the local office environment.
• Monitor the regional support queue to meet service level objectives, focusing on APAC-specific issues while collaborating on global support.
• Serve as a point of escalation for complex technical problems and challenging customer interactions.
• Work with the VP of Customer Engineering to align regional team goals with the overall company strategy.
• Analyze regional support data and customer feedback to identify trends and provide insights to leadership.
• Improve support processes and internal tools in partnership with Support and CX Operations teams.
• Conduct regular reviews of support interactions to ensure technical accuracy and consistent brand communication.

Requirements

• Minimum of 6 years in a technical support capacity within a Software as a Service (SaaS) company.
• Experience guiding others through technical expertise, coaching, or formal mentorship; prior people management is helpful but not mandatory.
• Demonstrated success in building teams or establishing operational processes in a new geographical area or startup environment.
• Solid understanding of networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, firewalls, and routing.
• Familiarity with networking and security concepts; Kubernetes experience is a plus.
• Experience with identity management and single sign-on (SSO) solutions like Okta, Azure AD, and Google.
• Experience supporting customers across various operating systems such as Linux, MacOS, and Windows.
• Proven ability to manage and enhance support workflows through processes and tools.
• A data-driven approach with the capacity to track and act on metrics like customer satisfaction, time to first response, and time to resolution.
• Strong communication abilities to explain technical subjects to both customers and internal teams.
• Ability to perform effectively in a fast-paced setting while managing multiple priorities.
• Travel within APAC is expected as needed for the role, with occasional travel to North America for internal meetings and global conferences.

Nice to have

• Experience with Kubernetes.

Skills & tools

• Networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, DNS, firewalls, routing)
• Kubernetes
• Identity management and SSO (Okta, Azure AD, Google)
• Linux, MacOS, Windows support
• SaaS support workflows and tooling
• Data analysis and metrics tracking (CSAT, TTFR, TTR)

Practical notes

• Compensation includes base salary, equity, and benefits.
• Travel is required within APAC and occasionally to North America.
• Benefits include health, vision, dental, retirement contributions, professional development budget ($1500 USD annually), and paid time off.
• A home office setup stipend ($500 USD) and monthly internet reimbursement are provided.
• Paid parental leave is available.
• AI-assisted tools are used in the hiring process, but all hiring decisions are made by people.
• Official communications will come from @tailscale.com, @greenhouse.io, and @interviews.modernloop.io email addresses.