Senior Customer Support Engineer, Product Support

Cognex is the world’s leading provider of vision systems, software, sensors, and industrial barcode readers used in manufacturing automation.   Cognex vision helps companies improve product quality, eliminate production errors, lower manufacturing costs, and exceed consumer expectations for high quality products at an affordable price. Typical applications for machine vision include detecting defects, monitoring production lines, guiding assembly robots, and tracking, sorting and identifying parts. 

Cognex serves an international customer base from offices located throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and through a global network of integration and distribution partners. The company is headquartered close to Boston in Natick, Massachusetts

We are looking for a Customer Support Engineer in our Guadalajara, Mexico office working on a hybrid schedule.

Essential Functions

• Provide expert, front-line product customer support submitted through web or phone calls by asking meaningful troubleshooting questions, providing clarification on customer questions, directing customer to useful resources, etc

• Maintain high customer satisfaction level through timely, attentive, and polite interactions

• Maintain open communication and provide consistent case updates to customer

• Ensure appropriate equipment is in place to set up common use cases for troubleshooting. Reproduce reported issues and resolving or providing suitable workarounds

• Create, update, and close cases in CRM

• Maintain complete and coherent case notes, and ensure all relevant data is captured

• Develop and maintain technical bulletins and knowledge base articles for complex problems that are easy to understand for non-technical and technical audience both internal and external

• Interface and coordinate with global technical support group to facilitate troubleshooting and ensure timely resolution

• Utilize experience to create internal FAQs and share with the Technical Support Team. Reviews FAQs created by junior team members

• Escalate product issues to engineering and product marketing teams to solve certain topics and report product and manual bugs

• Respond timely to requests from engineering for additional information or troubleshooting on customer setup

• Participate in required technical trainings to keep skills up to date with current technology, new products and industry standards or trends. May also deliver training to junior team members

• Drive continuous improvement of technical support processes based on employee and customer feedback

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Ability to guide customers in how to use Cognex products and explain the cause of more complex trouble in an easy-to-understand manner

• Understand when and how to react and maintain composure and professionalism when handling different types of customers

• Understand different types of communication and when to apply them

• Active listening skills and the ability to gain a full and accurate understanding of the customer point of view

• Strong ability to demonstrate empathy and establish a good customer relationship

• Strong ability to de-escalate customer frustrations and maintain focus on the issue at hand

• Understand how to set realistic customer expectations and the ability to explain product capabilities to customers

• Specialized knowledge of image processing, analysis, and deep learning techniques.

• Advanced knowledge of machine vision systems, optics, and lighting techniques for machine vision applications.

• Expertise in all relevant Cognex products/ technology (DataMan barcode reading, In-Sight platforms, VisionPro, Deep Learning, etc.)

• Advanced knowledge of networking and industrial communication protocols such as TCP, FTP, EIP, Devicenet, Profinet, SLMP, Modbus, etc.

• Ability to replicate setups, reproduce complex issues, and resolve difficult problems efficiently

• Strong understanding when you need more information from the customer and how to ask questions to get appropriate information

• Advanced knowledge of factory automation process, industrial controls, industrial robotic controls, and a general knowledge of PLC ladder logic programming

• Deep understanding of software programming and debugging of both script-based and object-oriented applications

• Ability to read and interpret complex wire and engineering diagrams

• Advanced ability to read programming documentation

• Advanced knowledge of specific programming languages in use by Cognex (Javascript, C#, C++, VB)

• Practical, hands-on knowledge of electronics, electrical circuits, hardware, and wiring

• Ability to discern when to escalate a case and what information is relevant to include when escalating to other departments

• Ability to prioritize, multitask and work under pressure

• Strong note taking and organization skills and the ability to effectively hand-off cases.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in technical field or equivalent work experience

• 2-6 years related experience in technical support in the electronics, robotics, manufacturing, automation, or IT industries

• Prior customer service experience preferred

• Ability to travel internationally as required

• English language proficiency (spoken and written)

• Ability to speak on the phone for extended periods of time

• Ability to use computer equipment or work in office environment

• Strong attention to detail and communication skills and ability to work within a team