Customer Support Developer (Databases)

Job description

Airbyte is the data and action layer for AI agents. We give agents fast, accurate, authenticated access to business data across hundreds of sources, so they can discover the entities that matter, reason over real-time context, and take action in the systems they read from, not just observe them. We started as the open-source standard for data movement and proved the economics of data integration at scale: hundreds of connectors, thousands of companies, and, since 2020, have raised $181M from leading investors including Benchmark, Accel, Altimeter, Coatue, and Y Combinator. As our CEO Michel Tricot puts it, "the last ten years were all about structured data. The future is all about context." We're now building that context infrastructure for production-grade agents on the same open foundation, as agents become the primary consumers of enterprise data. Our mission is unchanged: make data available and actionable to everyone, everywhere. That everyone now includes AI agents. THE ROLE: Are you the kind of developer who gets a rush from cracking a gnarly replication bug, an issue with CDC implementation, or a query that hangs with no obvious reason? Do you thrive at the intersection of writing code and helping customers succeed? As a Customer Support Developer (Databases) at Airbyte, you'll combine hands-on development skills with deep technical empathy to support our growing cloud, embedded, and open-source integration platform. This isn't a traditional support role. You'll be writing Java and Kotlin, shipping contributions to our open-source database source and destination connectors, digging into query plans and transaction logs, and directly shaping how customers move mission-critical data between databases, warehouses, and lakes. You'll champion the customer voice alongside our engineering and product teams every day, getting your hands dirty in the code. WHAT YOU’LL DO: Customer Support & Technical Troubleshooting - Serve as the primary technical escalation point for database-related customer issues, responding via email, ticketing systems, and video calls with precision and clarity. - Triage and prioritize incoming issues with urgency, consistently meeting SLA targets while leveraging AI tools to work smarter and resolve issues faster. - Dig into complex issues across relational databases, data warehouses, data lakes, and cloud object storage, not just finding workarounds but partnering with Engineering to root-cause and drive real fixes. - Reproduce customer-reported bugs by inspecting connector logs, query plans, replication slots, transaction logs, sync state, and destination table state, and document findings with enough technical detail for Engineering to act on immediately. - Support customers through onboarding and troubleshooting for SSH tunnels, network configuration, database user permissions, CDC setup (WAL/binlog/redo logs), and warehouse/lake authentication. Database Connector Development - Get hands-on with customers building and debugging integrations, helping them navigate Airbyte's database sources and destinations with confidence, from authentication and SSL/SSH setup to CDC, schema evolution, incremental cursors, and typed destination tables. - Validate database version compatibility across supported engines and releases, maintain testing environments, and reproduce customer-reported behavior on real database and warehouse instances. - Support customers writing to data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift), data lakes and object storage (S3, GCS, Azure Blob, Databricks, Iceberg), and databases (Postgres, MySQL, MSSQL, ClickHouse), including schema evolution and typed-columns behavior. - Help customers running database sources (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle, MongoDB, and more) troubleshoot replication behavior, cursor selection, full-refresh vs. incremental vs. CDC trade-offs, and sync state recovery. - Contribute directly to Airbyte's open-source database connectors and the Java/Kotlin Bulk CDK: fix bugs, improve error handling, harden schema-evolution and CDC paths, and submit pull requests to the Airbyte repository. - Review and test community contributions to database sources and destinations, helping external contributors land high-quality changes. - Stay sharp on Airbyte's connector catalog, new database and destination releases, and platform updates so your guidance is always accurate and timely. Cross-Functional Collaboration & Enablement - Be the voice of the customer within Airbyte, working closely with Engineering and Product to surface issues, advocate for feature requests, and ensure customer pain points actually influence the database reliability and performance roadmap. - Partner with Solutions Engineering and Sales Engineering to provide white-glove technical onboarding for enterprise customers, including CDC architecture reviews, destination schema modeling, and production readiness assessments. - Train and mentor Technical Support Engineers on database connector concepts, including JDBC fundamentals, CDC patterns, schema evolution, query optimization, destination typing and normalization, and the Airbyte protocol (spec, discover, check, read, write). - Partner with Sales and Customer Success for technical conversations, onboarding, and expansion efforts, bringing the kind of product depth that helps close and retain customers. Knowledge, Process Improvement, & AI - Create and maintain internal and external knowledge base articles, troubleshooting guides, and database connector documentation to support scalability. - Document research and troubleshooting processes,( including CDC debugging, destination schema reconciliation, and performance tuning runbooks), to aid faster ticket resolution and team knowledge sharing. - Identify AI-driven opportunities for automation and process improvements that reduce support load and improve the customer experience. - Embrace AI-assisted workflows and contribute to developing playbooks and skills that encode repeatable troubleshooting procedures, connector debugging patterns, and onboarding Runbooks, enabling the team to scale expertise through automation. - Spearhead initiatives to fill organizational or support gaps and take ownership of unique projects. WHAT YOU’LL NEED: - 2+ years in software engineering, data engineering, technical support, DevOps, QA, or a similar role supporting developers or technical users. - Fluency in SQL, with hands-on experience investigating query plans, isolation levels, and performance bottlenecks. - Proficiency in Java or Kotlin. You must be able to read, write, and debug JVM-based connector code. You'll be contributing to database sources and destinations, the Bulk CDK, and automation tooling. - Hands-on experience with relational databases, data warehouses, or data lakes, including concepts like CDC (Change Data Capture), schema evolution, and query optimization. - Experience with JDBC and common database drivers, and comfort debugging connection, authentication, SSL, and SSH tunnel issues. - Understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and data integration concepts, including ELT/ETL workflows. - Strong troubleshooting instincts, clear communication with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, and a growth mindset that keeps you improving even when things get hard. - High tolerance for ambiguity and a natural self-starter. NICE TO HAVE: - Experience with PostgreSQL, MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle, MongoDB, Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, ClickHouse, or similar relational and non-relational systems. - Experience with data lakes and open table formats (Iceberg, Delta Lake), and cloud object storage (S3, GCS, Azure Blob). - Familiarity with Airbyte's Bulk CDK or contributions to open-source database connectors. - Experience with container orchestration tools like Kubernetes or Docker and multi-tenant architectures. - Background supporting developer-facing or embedded/platform products in a B2B SaaS context. - Experience with CI/CD pipelines and GitHub-based open-source workflows. - Experience with AI-assisted development tools and building automated playbooks or Runbooks. LOCATION: - Remote in U.S. timezones - Pacific, Mountain, Central WHY YOU'LL LOVE WORKING AT AIRBYTE: At Airbyte, we believe great work happens when people feel supported, trusted, and empowered to grow. Our market-leading Total Rewards package is designed to help you thrive professionally and personally. Our benefits and perks include: - Flexible PTO with a culture that encourages at least 25 days off annually - 16 weeks fully paid parental leave for all parents - Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents - 401(k) retirement plan - Professional development budget, conference sponsorship, and book reimbursement - Commuter benefits and monthly internet reimbursement - Breakfast and lunch in our San Francisco office - A collaborative, in-person culture focused on learning, growth, and impact If you find this role exciting, we encourage you to apply even if you think you don’t meet all of the requirements! We are not accepting agency submissions or recruiting firm support for this role. Unsolicited resumes will not be considered. Airbyte is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of actual or perceived race, creed, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, genetic information, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, familial status, domestic violence victim status, veteran or military status, or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state or local laws. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Airbyte is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application procedures. Please let us know if you need assistance or accommodations due to a disability.