Customer Support Engineer

Job description

Mercura (YC W25) helps the companies that build the real world move at software speed, automating the back-office work that runs the $12 trillion industry behind every hospital, school, and power plant. We started with one of their biggest bottlenecks - turning messy technical requests into accurate quotes - and grew to $2M ARR in our first year. With a team of 16, we're now targeting $10M by the end of 2026 as well as our expansion into the US. ABOUT THE ROLE As Mercura’s AI agents become the core infrastructure on which our customers operate on, one thing becomes increasingly important: customers need to trust that Mercura works as any time, as their real business depends on it. That means customer problems cannot disappear into a ticket queue. When a quote is wrong, an integration behaves unexpectedly, or a workflow breaks in production, someone needs to understand what actually happened technically and drive it to resolution. The person who makes sure everything runs fabulously - that will be you. As our first Support Engineer, you will own technical customer resolution end-to-end. You will investigate and reproduce problems, dig into logs and data, identify roots causes and fix issues yourself. And you’ll work closely with product and engineering to design a deeper product change. If you're a software engineer with 1+ year of experience who enjoys debugging real production issues, talking to users, and owning problems end-to-end, this role is for you. WHAT YOU WILL BE WORKING ON - Debug real customer problems: Investigate production issues across product, data, integrations, and workflows. You will dive deep into logs, databases, customer examples, and the codebase to understand what is going wrong. - Be super close to our customers: Talk directly to users, understand their problems, explain what is happening, and make sure they feel taken care of. - Drive customer support automation: You will design AI agents that handle real customer interactions and resolve issues faster than most humans could, while knowing exactly when to hand off. - Make engineering faster: You’ll deploy and manage AI agent teams that help investigate and resolve customer issues, deciding when human input from core engineering is needed. For issues that require escalation, you’ll ensure there is a clear technical write-up, covering what happened, how to reproduce it, relevant data, and where the issue likely sits. - Turn repeated problems into better systems: Document recurring issues, improve workflows, build internal playbooks, and help product and engineering see where the real customer issues are. WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR - At least 1 year of experience in full-stack software engineering (React, Typescript, Python, Postgres) - You have shipped production code before and understand how software behaves outside of a perfect development environment. - You can debug independently across logs, databases, APIs, and unfamiliar code. - You enjoy customer-facing work and see talking to users as the fastest way to understand what matters. - You are structured, reliable, and care about people. - German at B2 level or above is required, because many of our customers are German. English should be strong enough to work with an international team. You are based in Munich or willing to relocate. We work together in person. WHY JOIN MERCURA - Own a role that directly affects the company's success: Your work directly impacts customers moving billions in goods across two continents. You will shape whether they feel blocked, confused, confident, or genuinely excited to use Mercura in daily operations. - Work very close to product and engineering: You will see first where customers struggle, what they need, and where the product should improve. - Build for a market most people underestimate: We automate work in a $12T+ industry that still runs on emails, PDFs, phone calls, and manual ERP processes. The pain is real, the market is huge, and modern software has barely touched it. - Get real ownership and upside: You will receive real shares in the company with voting rights, not just VSOP/ESOP. - Join early, in person, with a strong team: We are 16 people today, preparing to grow to 100. You will work directly with the founders, engineering, product, and customers, and help shape how we support customers as we scale. Interview Process 1. Intro Call – Casual chat with one of our founders to get to know each other and learn about Mercura. 2. Technical Take-Home – A 3-hour exercise based on a real problem from our work 3. Technical Interview – Present your results in a 45-minute session and discuss your approach. 4. On-Site – Get to know the team at our Munich office. 5. Offer – If we see a great fit, we'll make you an offer. Once you accept, we'll do 2–3 reference checks. ABOUT THE FOUNDERS We are Lukas, Stefan & Sean, the co-founders of Mercura. We share a deep commitment to excellence and the discipline to pursue what others might consider impossible. Two of us come from non-academic families, and we all know what it means to create our own paths and overcome barriers. This experience shapes our belief in equal opportunity and fuels our dedication to social mobility. Lukas (left) is responsible for business development at Mercura. With his background as a Data Scientist at Allianz and at Google in Silicon Valley, he brings extensive expertise in data and AI. Lukas’ family has been active in the construction industry for over 100 years, giving him a deep understanding and passion for the sector's specific needs. Sean (middle) is responsible for technical development at Mercura. As a top 0.01% physicist, Sean earned a Silver medal for Germany at the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO), began researching with the Max Planck Institute at the age of 16, and has since published at leading machine learning conferences. Stefan (right) leads product development at Mercura. Previously, he worked in management consulting at Bain & Company, where he helped manufacturers improve their operations. Stefan leverages his research experience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Business School to develop innovative solutions for the industry. At Mercura, we believe that the best ideas emerge when people from different backgrounds collaborate together. We hire based on ability, mindset, and values, and we live by one simple rule: the best idea wins. Beyond Mercura, we actively support initiatives that promote diversity and gender equity and commit a portion of our personal income each year to organizations expanding opportunity for others. [https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/aea8071f-e224-4680-b825-9d15c5a9df28/8836b971-88e3-4b84-bebc-66dc92a82ee7/founders-1-2%20(1).jpg] OUR COMPANY VALUES Customer first. We stay close to our customer’s reality and use their feedback to build what truly matters and earn their lasting trust. Ownership. We take responsibility end-to-end and act proactively to pursue the most ambitious goals. Enjoy the ride. We build a culture where people can be themselves, have fun doing meaningful work, and celebrate wins along the way. Let the best ideas win. We challenge each other respectfully and judge ideas by merit, not who said it. Down-to-earth. We are approachable, humble, and hands-on, bringing both heart and mind to everything we do.