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Academic Supports Coordinator (Contract)
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Support is Key in Technical Work
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Back to the Magazine|Archive Issue 03
June 2026
Career Journey
Contributor
Support is Key in Technical Work
Emily Kelley's career progression into support engineering. Why is support important? We need to support the systems we build.
ER
By
Emily Reynolds Kelley
Published
July 2, 2026
Issue
03
June 2026
Read
5 min
Submitted by Emily Reynolds Kelley
Build With Her Magazine
Support is the oft forgotten sister to Engineering. We assume that the hardest part of engineering is building the system, not supporting systems afterward. In an ecosystem which prioritizes new features and growth at any cost, Support is often seen as an after thought. Combine these notions with gender-coded work of support and we begin to see why so few engineers choose to go into Support roles.
I originally had dreamed of creating software and becoming a builder rather than a supporter, but I kept finding my way back to support. I prefer problem solving to building new systems. I find it tedious to start a project only to spend an hour to spin up a dev server. Coding feels rote, mechanized and lacking human interactions. Additionally, it's a very difficult place to start in tech - alternatively, support is a great place to start.
The more I fell into support, the more I fell in love with support as a field. First off, I am a people person. I am the person who is chatting with everyone at the party while my husband takes pictures in the background. Sitting at a desk and coding all day, does not satisfy my urge to talk with people and learn their stories. I love solving problems and feeling a sigh of relief when the customer and I agree that a problem is solved. Support is a perfect blend of customer interaction and engineering and allows you to use both sides of your mind.
Finally, there are real benefits economically in support. While renumeration might be lower than a Senior Developer, there is demand for Support Engineers. For all the talk that AI will eliminate Support, it has not happened. Indeed, it cannot happen - except to the detriment of a company's bottom line. When a customer calls in, they are generally unhappy. Customers do not want to talk to a bot, they want sympathy from a live person. Support comes in here. To make this point personally, when I was laid off, I found a job within a month while some of the engineers I was working with are still looking nearly 1.5 years later. Support may not make the same amount as developers, but we are never unemployed for long.
If you like problem solving, enjoy helping people and don't mind a bit of documentation - Support could be a great career for you.
I love to help women in tech! Feel free to reach me on LinkedIn.
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