Valuing Support Roles: The Importance of Skilled Support Engineers

·Aug 14, 2025 04:47 PM·

https://oxide.computer/blog/oxides-compensation-model-how-is-it-going

One of the more incredible (and disturbingly frequent) objections I have heard is: "But is that what you’ll pay support folks?" I continue to find this question offensive, but I no longer find it surprising: the specific dismissal of support roles reveals a widespread and corrosive devaluation of those closest to customers. My rejoinder is simple: think of the best support engineers you’ve worked with; what were they worth? Anyone who has shipped complex systems knows these extraordinary people — calm under fire, deeply technical, brilliantly resourceful, profoundly empathetic — are invaluable to the business. So what if you built a team entirely of folks like that?

A better world is possible.

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6 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

balevine
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I like the Oxide folks and I think this is very good, in principle. Having worked for companies that said more or less the same stuff early on, I am dubious of the veracity of their claims. I hope things are going well for everyone there and I hope folks there really are happy and motivated and doing great. I'd love to read something like this from the point of view of someone who isn't on their exec team, though.
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balevine
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Maybe I'm jaded. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
birdcar
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Oh for sure, I'm focused mostly on the comment I called out about support engineers being worth money. I'm not used to seeing such a vocal defense even from folks inside the support community that we're worth as much as engineers
balevine
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I will not name the company, but I distinctly remember hearing "our support engineers get paid what software engineers here make" at an early stage startup. Only to find out that some of the support engineers were making a quarter or less of what the average software engineers were making.
balevine
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Basically... I want to hear from the support engineers.
birdcar
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Oh for sure, I do too