Senior support engineer - tooling & automation

At Thorn, our cause is our code. We are a nonprofit whose mission of defending children from sexual exploitation and abuse is deeply embedded within our core—a shared code that drives us to do challenging work with resilience and determination.

Here, you’ll work and grow among the best hearts and the best minds in tech, data, and business alongside our network of independent partners, NGOs, and law enforcement agencies. Together, we’re focused on building technology that protects children’s futures. We are looking for dynamic problem solvers with the desire to help address some of today’s toughest issues. You'll collaborate with a diverse group of peers in a remote environment centered on wellness, care, and compassion.

In 2019, we took the stage at TED and shared our audacious goal of eliminating child sexual abuse material from the internet. Come join us to help make this goal a reality and build a world where every child can be safe, curious, and happy.

Our Build Team develops and supports the products and tools that empower our industry and law enforcement partners to combat child sexual abuse online. As a Senior Support Engineer, you’ll provide deep technical guidance and reliable support to ensure a top-tier experience for our growing and diverse customer base across products like Safer and Thorn Detect. You will also contribute to the continued evolution of Support by building and improving tooling, workflows, and automations that make our work more effective and scalable, including thoughtfully applying AI and emerging technologies where they can have meaningful impact.

What You’ll Do

• Guide customers through the full customer journey for products like Safer and Thorn Detect, supporting both standard and complex implementations and troubleshooting technical issues across a wide range of scenarios.
• Provide timely, thoughtful support to users with varying technical backgrounds, independently resolving more complex issues and determining when escalation to Product, Engineering, or Account Managers is required.
• Design, build, maintain, and improve tooling for Support, translating recurring support needs and operational challenges into scalable technical solutions.
• Proactively identify opportunities to improve Support workflows through tooling and automation, developing solutions that increase team efficiency, scalability, and the support experience.
• Identify opportunities to thoughtfully apply AI and emerging technologies to Support tooling, workflows, and automations where they can provide meaningful value.
• Operate as a technical advocate for customers by clearly communicating their needs, questions, and constraints to internal teams, while balancing customer expectations with technical realities.
• Lead support for complex, high-impact customer use cases, serving as a go-to resource for advanced troubleshooting and implementation nuances.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Data Science, UX, Account Managers, and Sales to support a cohesive experience for prospects and customers from onboarding, support, and ongoing product use.
• Identify recurring issues, friction points, and opportunities for improvement across customer interactions, and proactively share insights to improve processes, tooling, and our products.
• Use and improve support tooling such as ticketing systems, Slack, Zoom, and email to track requests, document resolutions, and ensure clear communication and timely follow-through internally and externally.
• Own and improve key areas of internal and customer-facing documentation, including onboarding materials, support guides, and best practices to help scale the Support Engineering team’s effectiveness.
• Mentor and support other Support Engineers by sharing best practices, providing guidance on complex cases, and helping level up the team’s technical judgement.

What We’re Looking For

• You have a commitment to putting the children we serve at the center of everything you do.
• You have strong experience providing technical support to customers, with the ability to diagnose complex issues, resolve nuanced problems independently, and determine when and how to escalate effectively.
• Experience building, maintaining, or improving internal or Support-focused tooling that solves operational problems or enables teams to work more effectively.
• A proactive, test-and-learn mindset, with the curiosity to explore new technical approaches and the persistence to turn experimentation into meaningful improvements for the team.
• Hands-on experience applying AI technologies to improve tools, workflows, integrations, or automations, with the judgment to identify opportunities where AI can reduce manual effort, surface insights, and support human decision-making.
• You communicate clearly, efficiently, and thoughtfully with both technical and non-technical audiences. We’re a highly-distributed team, so written communication is crucial, from Slack to technical documentation to Zoom calls.
• You have experience communicating directly with external users, and bring a strong commitment to delivering an exceptional customer experience.
• You’re comfortable operating in a fast-paced, reactive environment and demonstrate sound judgment when prioritizing shifting customer needs, technical constraints, and competing requests.
• You not only follow established processes, but can identify gaps, recurring friction, or inefficiencies, and contribute to improving support workflows and practices.
• You manage your time and workload independently, handling complex or high-impact support cases while using available capacity to proactively improve documentation or processes that benefit the team.
• You communicate proactively with customers by setting clear expectations, navigating ambiguity, and maintaining trust through thoughtful updates and follow-up, even in complex or high-pressure situations.
• You demonstrate strong documentation ownership, contributing to and improving onboarding materials, support guides, and internal resources so they remain accurate, scalable, and useful for the broader team.
• You approach complex problems with persistence and structured thinking, drawing on experience to troubleshoot edge cases, test hypotheses, and guide investigations toward resolution.
• You bring deeper technical familiarity with systems, integrations, and customer environments, and continue to grow your expertise in ways that benefit both customers and teammates.
• You collaborate closely with teammates and cross-functional partners, and are trusted to represent Support Engineering perspectives clearly and constructively in broader discussions.
• You enjoy offering help, support, and guidance to your teammates, sharing best practices and helping raise the team’s overall technical judgement and confidence.
• You have empathy and can be a strong advocate for our users while balancing customer needs with technical realities.

Technologies We Use

• Jira Service Manager (JSM) / Github / Docusaurus
• Docker / Kubernetes / Terraform
• AWS / Google Cloud
• Amazon SQS / Google PubSub / RabbitMQ / Kafka
• Node / Python 3 / TypeScript
• PostgreSQL / Elasticsearch
• AI APIs / Generative AI tools

Compensation and Benefits

A reasonable estimate of the compensation range for this role is $79,000 - $109,250/year. This range takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to location; skill sets; experience and training; licensure, and certifications.

Our remote-first work model is structured around working from home most of the time. But, there will be times that employees are expected to travel. For example, Thorn may host company-wide gatherings, and smaller teams may hold in-person meetings and team-building events, or require attendance at specific conferences.

At Thorn, we know that great people make a great organization. We value our people and offer employees a broad range of benefits. Learn more about what working at Thorn can mean for you.

Thorn is strengthened by the wide range of experiences and perspectives on our team. We value the diversity of our professional backgrounds, subject matter expertise, cultures, and perspectives because they help us solve complex problems and serve our mission more effectively. We hire based on merit, qualifications, and organizational need, and we are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where all employees can thrive.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

Thorn is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. We provide reasonable accommodations to ensure candidates and employees with disabilities can fully participate in the application process, perform essential job functions, and access all the benefits and privileges of employment. If you need an accommodation, please contact us at hiring@wearethorn.org

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