Customer Engineer
Senior · Full Time
Opens Modal's application page
Role
What you'll do.
Modal is seeking a Customer Engineer who will bridge technical support and platform engineering, working directly with AI and ML developers to solve complex infrastructure challenges. The ideal candidate will have deep technical expertise in low-level systems and AI/ML, capable of debugging, improving platform performance, and creating scalable solutions that enhance the customer experience.
Responsibilities
- Customer Technical Support: Provide direct technical assistance to developers and ML engineers through Slack, email, and calls, helping them debug and optimize their AI workloads
- Platform Improvement: Develop and ship code that addresses customer pain points, creating features and automation to enhance the Modal platform's overall user experience
- Systems Optimization: Design scalable tooling, dashboards, and automated workflows to improve support efficiency and customer satisfaction
- Feedback Translation: Convert field insights into concrete platform improvements, including documentation updates, API changes, and new feature proposals
- Community Engagement: Contribute to open-source projects, create technical demos, and publish content to support the broader developer community
Qualifications
What we look for.
Technical
Infrastructure Knowledge
Deep understanding of operating systems, file systems, networking, performance profiling, cluster management, and distributed systems
AI/ML Engineering
Experience with model training, inference optimization, GPU workloads, and ML infrastructure development
Education
Technical Degree
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field preferred
Experience
Systems Expertise
Proven track record of solving complex technical challenges in low-level infrastructure or AI/ML domains
Automation Skills
Demonstrated ability to identify and eliminate manual processes through engineering solutions
Skills
Required
Low-Level Systems
Expertise in infrastructure, networking, and distributed computing technologies
AI/ML Technical Skills
Strong understanding of machine learning workflows, model training, and GPU-accelerated computing
Communication
Exceptional ability to explain complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
Preferred
Open Source Contribution
Nice to haveExperience contributing to or maintaining open-source projects in infrastructure or ML domains
Cloud Infrastructure
Nice to haveFamiliarity with modern cloud computing platforms and serverless architectures
Tech stack
Languages
Frameworks
Tools
Other
Compensation
Pay and benefits.
Base·USD 150,000 – 230,000
Equity·Stock options
Benefits
Startup Equity
Opportunity to join a high-growth AI infrastructure company at an early stage with significant equity potential
Professional Development
Work alongside creators of popular open-source projects and experienced engineering leaders
Cutting-Edge Technology
Exposure to advanced AI infrastructure and the opportunity to solve complex technical challenges
Process
Interview steps.
- 01
Initial Screening
Technical resume review and initial phone screen with recruiting team
- 02
Technical Interview
Deep-dive interview focusing on systems expertise, AI/ML knowledge, and problem-solving skills
- 03
Practical Challenge
Technical assessment or take-home project demonstrating infrastructure and debugging capabilities
- 04
Team Interview
Interviews with current engineering team members to assess cultural fit and technical collaboration skills
- 05
Final Discussion
Meeting with engineering leadership to discuss role expectations and potential contributions
Full posting
Original listing.
About Us:
Modal provides the infrastructure foundation for AI teams. With instant GPU access, sub-second container startups, and native storage, Modal makes it simple to train models, run batch jobs, and serve low-latency inference. We have thousands of customers who rely on us for production AI workloads, including Lovable, Scale AI, Substack, and Suno.
We're a fast-growing team based out of NYC, SF, and Stockholm. We've hit 9-figure ARR and recently raised a Series B at a $1.1B valuation. Our investors include Lux Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Amplify Partners, and Elad Gil.
Working at Modal means joining one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure organizations at an early stage, with many opportunities to grow within the company. Our team includes creators of popular open-source projects (e.g. Seaborn, Luigi), academic researchers, international olympiad medalists, and experienced engineering and product leaders with decades of experience.
The Role:
We're looking for engineers with deep AI/ML and low-level systems experience who want to build the best technical support experience in the world. This isn't a traditional support role — it's an engineering role where you happen to be closest to our customers.
You'll split your time roughly 50/50 between working directly with customers and shipping fixes, features, and automation that improve Modal for everyone. When you help a customer debug a training run, you'll also fix the underlying issue in the platform. When you notice ten customers hitting the same friction point, you'll build the tooling or automation that eliminates it entirely.
This role is for people who solve problems, not people who answer tickets. The problems you encounter are deeply technical and arise from running some of the most demanding AI workloads in the world. You'll be a member of our engineering team, contributing production code alongside the engineers building the core platform. The difference is that your roadmap is shaped by what you learn at the frontier of customer experience. You will:
Ship code that matters. Fix bugs, build features, and create automation that improves the experience for every Modal user — not just the one who reported the issue.
Work directly with customers. Help developers and ML engineers debug, optimize, and architect their workloads across Slack, email, and calls.
Build scalable systems. Design tooling, dashboards, and automated workflows that make support efficient at scale — delighting customers at the most important moments.
Close the feedback loop. Translate patterns you see in the field into concrete improvements — docs fixes, API changes, or new feature proposals.
Contribute to open source and technical content. Write examples, build demos, and publish content that helps the broader community succeed on Modal.
Requirements:
Accomplished in key areas. You bring depth in either low-level infrastructure or ML/AI, and you're not lost in the other.
Low-level infrastructure experience. Operating systems, file systems, networking, performance profiling, cluster management and distributed systems.
AI/ML engineering experience. Training models, optimizing inference, working with GPUs, or building ML infrastructure.
Automation mindset. Your instinct when you see a manual process is to eliminate it and you have the engineering background to make that happen.
Clear communicator. Can explain a systems issue to a customer, write a crisp bug report, and draft documentation, all while collaborating internally to ship improvements.
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