Support Engineer

Application Support Analyst
Location: Dallas, TX or Chicago, IL- Hybrid onsite 3 days a week
Employment Type: Full Time
Compensation: 50-60/hour

The Planet Group has partnered with a Dallas area company to locate a Senior Application Support Engineer to serve as a technical expert and escalation point for complex issues affecting business-critical applications. This position is ideal for a naturally curious problem solver who enjoys investigating unfamiliar systems, uncovering the source of difficult technical problems, and working across teams to implement lasting solutions.

The Senior Application Support Engineer will use SQL, application logs, code analysis, and advanced troubleshooting techniques to diagnose production issues, validate software defects, and perform thorough root cause analyses. This individual will collaborate closely with Product, Development, and other technical teams while providing guidance to less-experienced support engineers.

This is not a traditional help desk position. The successful candidate will be comfortable looking beyond surface-level symptoms, examining how applications, databases, APIs, and integrations work together, and taking ownership of issues through resolution.

This is a hybrid role and requires candidates to be onsite three days a week in either the Dallas area office or downtown Chicago.

Key Responsibilities

• Investigate and resolve complex technical issues affecting business-critical applications and customer-facing systems.
• Lead root cause analyses for high-impact incidents, including documenting findings, resolutions, business impact, and preventive actions.
• Use SQL, application logs, database analysis, and code review to isolate application defects, data integrity issues, and performance problems.
• Reproduce, validate, and document suspected software defects before escalating them to Development.
• Provide Development teams with detailed technical findings, impact assessments, supporting evidence, and reproduction steps.
• Develop subject matter expertise across core applications and their supporting architecture, infrastructure, databases, APIs, and integrations.
• Collaborate with Product and Development teams to communicate business impact and help prioritize corrective action.
• Mentor support and triage engineers on advanced troubleshooting, incident response, and technical best practices.
• Identify opportunities to improve support workflows, knowledge management, incident prevention, and defect resolution.
• Maintain clear and proactive communication with technical teams, business stakeholders, and customers throughout the resolution process.
• Participate in incident, problem, and change-management activities in accordance with established IT service management practices.

Required Qualifications

• At least three years of experience in application support, production support, software development, or a comparable technical role.
• Experience performing root cause analysis and resolving complex production incidents.
• Strong SQL skills, including the ability to investigate database relationships, performance issues, and data integrity concerns.
• Ability to analyze application logs and trace technical issues across multiple components or systems.
• Understanding of application architecture, APIs, integrations, relational databases, and supporting infrastructure.
• Ability to read and analyze code in at least two programming languages, such as Java, C#, .NET, Python, or comparable languages.
• Experience reproducing, validating, and documenting software defects.
• Familiarity with object-oriented programming concepts and application-level debugging.
• Experience using IT service management tools and working within incident, problem, and change-management processes.
• Demonstrated ability to learn unfamiliar applications and technologies through independent research and investigation.
• Strong ownership mentality and a willingness to remain engaged until the correct outcome is achieved.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate technical findings into clear business context.
• Strong stakeholder-management and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office, including Excel for analysis and reporting.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related technical field, or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting complex enterprise, SaaS, or customer-facing applications.
• Previous experience working directly with software development and product-management teams.
• Technical quality assurance or software testing experience.
• Experience mentoring junior or mid-level support professionals.
• Demonstrated interest in continuous improvement, knowledge sharing, and technical leadership.

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