Roles we recruit
Seven practices, 27 functions. Start at the practice when you cannot yet name the title; go straight to the function when you can.
Browse all 229 roles Brief us on a seatFlat 15% of first-year base · shortlist in 10 working days
Five seats sit under customer support, from the helpdesk analyst who triages every request to the escalation manager who owns the cases that put accounts at risk. We split them by the stage of the queue they own, screen on tickets they answer and faults they diagnose, and charge a flat 15% only once your hire starts.
Most support job descriptions ask for a customer service rep and describe something else: a slow first reply, a technical backlog or escalations nobody owns. We start with where tickets stall, then the title.
The support queue, and the seat that owns each stage
Moves: first response time and routing accuracy
1 seat
The first line of the help desk: logging and prioritizing every request against its SLA, fixing known issues from the runbook and routing the rest to the right team.
Brief us when requests arrive with no log or priority, and customers chase you for updates.
Moves: first contact resolution and customer satisfaction
1 seat
Frontline product support by email, chat or phone: how-to, account and billing questions solved in as few replies as possible, and written up for the help center.
Brief us when first replies take a day, or the same question arrives weekly with no article to send.
Moves: time to resolution on technical cases
1 seat
The cases that need diagnosis: reproducing bugs, reading logs and API calls, testing integrations and writing a bug report engineering can act on without asking again.
Brief us when technical tickets sit for days, or engineers get pulled off the roadmap into support.
Moves: time to resolve critical cases and repeat escalations
1 seat
The cases that put an account at risk: critical incidents and executive complaints, run across engineering, product and customer success until fixed and reviewed.
Brief us when critical issues bounce between teams with no owner, and large customers escalate to the CEO.
Moves: SLA attainment, CSAT and cost per ticket across the team
1 seat
The team and its numbers: hiring, coverage and scheduling, QA, macros, the help center, SLAs and the tooling in Zendesk, Intercom or Freshdesk.
Brief us when three or more people work the queue, response times vary by shift, and nobody owns the system.
Measured on
Support attracts people who are good with people, and that shows in any interview. We screen for what keeps a queue healthy: written replies under time pressure, a fault diagnosed from the evidence, and the numbers they worked to.
Every candidate answers sample tickets built around your product, in writing and inside a time limit. We score accuracy, tone and whether the reply closes the ticket or invites another. A polished reply that fixes nothing is where we dig.
Technical candidates get a broken scenario: an API error, a failed integration or a log excerpt. We watch how they isolate the cause, then score the bug report they write for your engineers.
We ask for first response time, resolution time, CSAT and QA scores against the team’s targets, and what they changed when one slipped. Manager candidates bring the same numbers for the whole team, with the coverage plan behind them.
Candidates walk us through one escalation from first alert to close: who they pulled in, what they told the customer and what changed after it. We then check the story with a former manager who saw it happen.
Not sure which seat you need? Tell us where tickets stall and we will tell you which of the five owns it, or that it is a product problem rather than a support one.
Public US benchmarks, read October 2026. Support pay is mostly base salary: Built In’s self-reported additional cash for customer support managers averages $10,392, against an average base of $84,680. Technical support engineers and escalation managers sit well above customer support specialists.
Each bar runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile, the middle half of reported pay.
Base salaryWages including commission (BLS)Average total pay, base plus variable
Customer Support Specialist
Salary.com base, Built In support rep total
$46,208 to $57,521 base$61,114 average total
Technical Support Engineer
Salary.com base benchmark
$71,227 to $87,150 base
Helpdesk Analyst
BLS computer user support specialists
$49,000 to $79,040
Customer Support Manager
Salary.com base, Built In total
$90,045 to $114,122 base$95,072 average total
Escalation Manager
Salary.com base benchmark
$88,511 to $113,009 base
Customer Support Specialist, Technical Support Engineer, Customer Support Manager and Escalation Manager: Salary.com base salary, 25th to 75th percentile, United States, as of October 1, 2026. Helpdesk Analyst: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, annual wage at the 25th and 75th percentiles for computer user support specialists (SOC 15-1232), all industries. Rings and lead figures: Built In average total compensation, average base and additional cash, self-reported, for customer support reps and customer support managers, reviewed October 5, 2026. For reference, the BLS band for customer service representatives (SOC 43-4051) is $36,870 to $51,780. Public aggregates, not ZaphyrRecruit placement data.
The clock starts when the brief is signed and stops when three to five calibrated candidates are in front of you. Most of that time is spent talking to people, not searching for them.
Day 1
Forty-five minutes with whoever the hire reports to. We leave with the number the seat owns, the range you can pay and the two or three things that genuinely disqualify.
Days 2 to 7
We build the list from people doing the job now, approach them directly and screen every name against the brief before it reaches you.
Days 8 to 10
Three to five people, each with a page: what they have run, why they fit this seat, pay expectations, notice period and where they are weak.
After the shortlist
Interviews run at your pace. We handle scheduling, references and the counter-offer conversation, and nothing is payable until your hire starts.
Three clients, quoted as they wrote to us about searches we ran for them. We publish no names or logos without permission.
A helpdesk analyst works the first line, and a technical support engineer works the cases that need diagnosis. Help desk support means logging every request, prioritizing it against a service level, fixing known issues from a runbook and routing the rest. A technical support engineer reproduces faults, reads logs and API responses, and writes the bug report engineering acts on. Hire the analyst when requests wait to be picked up, the engineer when tickets wait on diagnosis.
A flat 15% of the hire’s first-year base salary, payable only once they start. On an $80,000 base that is $12,000, and the same 15% applies to every seat on this page, from helpdesk analyst to support manager. There is no retainer, no exclusivity and nothing to pay if the search does not produce a hire. If a placement leaves inside the guarantee period, we rerun the search at no further fee.
Salary.com puts customer support specialists at $46,208 to $57,521 base and technical support engineers at $71,227 to $87,150 (October 2026). Customer support managers sit at $90,045 to $114,122 and escalation managers at $88,511 to $113,009. The BLS puts the middle half of computer user support specialists, the occupation that covers helpdesk analysts, between $49,000 and $79,040 a year (May 2025). Product complexity and shift coverage move the number.
Ten working days from a signed brief to a shortlist of three to five calibrated candidates. The written ticket test and, for technical seats, the diagnosis exercise sit inside our screen, so your own interviews can focus on your product and your team. Interviews and the offer then run at your pace. Strong candidates often have more than one process running, so a decision within a week of the final interview is what keeps them.
Usually a support specialist who can also write the help center, with a founder or product lead as the escalation path. For an API or integration product, make that first hire a technical support engineer. A support manager earns the seat once three or more people work the queue, coverage spans time zones, or SLAs are written into customer contracts. Hire the manager too early and they spend months answering tickets; too late and response times depend on whoever is on shift.
With a written ticket test before you meet anyone: every candidate answers sample tickets built around your product inside a time limit. Technical seats also diagnose a broken scenario and write the bug report. We check the numbers they worked to, such as first response time, CSAT and QA scores, and confirm one escalation they handled with a former manager. Our four standards apply on every search: behavioral fit, role-based skill evaluation, industry and function alignment, and scalable hiring tracks.
Yes. Several seats hired as one structure is how we run a pod: for example, support specialists, a technical support engineer and the support manager they report to, briefed together so the second and third hires do not restart the search. The same 15% applies to each hire, payable as each one starts. We agree the order of hires at the brief, often the manager first, so they can help choose the team.
No. We recruit permanent hires into B2B and software support teams, on contingency and on the same terms as every other search: a flat 15% of first-year base, payable only once the hire starts. We do not supply temporary agents, run call center staffing or outsource a support queue. For seasonal cover or a high-volume contact center, a staffing agency built for that model is the better fit.
Tell us where tickets stall, which channels and hours you cover, and which number the seat owns. We reply within one business day with which of the five seats it is and what it pays.
Our support searches start with people doing the job now, approached directly, often before a job posting exists. Set up a job alert for customer roles, or send your CV and we will come to you when a seat opens.
Customer Support sits in our Customer & Retention practice, next to customer success and account management. The queue also runs on the CRM, integrations and systems behind it, so those functions are here too.