About Us
Academia.edu is a venture-backed, for-profit, and profitable company based in San Francisco. We are recognized as the world’s leading platform for researchers and scholars to share work, discover research, and connect with academics globally. Our bold vision is to democratize and accelerate the world's research, enhancing the speed of scientific discovery and technological progress for the benefit of everyone. We imagine a world where accessing academic papers is effortless, keeping track of cutting-edge research is seamless and collaborating with researchers is easier than ever before. Our platform empowers millions of scholars worldwide to push the boundaries of human understanding. We believe that academic research is a lever that improves the progress of humanity, and our commitment to this mission drives everything we do.
Join us as we continue to redefine what's possible in the world of research. Discover careers that challenge, inspire and propel you toward a future where your ideas can truly change the world. At Academia.edu, we're not just shaping the future of research—we're shaping the future of possibilities.
Please note that this role is in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Our office comes alive on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays! Three times a week, our Bay Area team gathers in our office located in San Francisco's Financial District (580 California St) for All Hands meetings, collaborative sessions, innovation-driven brainstorming, and events that bring us closer together. Our space has everything we need—from cozy rooms for 1:1 mentoring and focused work to larger rooms designed for team activities.
About the team
You will be the third person on a lean team with an extremely ambitious task: supporting Academia’s 300M+ users when they have questions about how to use our product to share their research, communicate with other scholars, and improve their academic reputation. Because the team is small, you’ll be wearing a lot of different hats. You’ll also have easy and direct access to all the team members and be able to make an immediate impact.
About you:
We’re looking for a thoughtful, autonomous, and detail-oriented CUSTOMER SUPPORT GENERALIST to respond accurately and quickly to our customers, and to increase the team’s efficiency by improving both internal and external processes and documentation.
Not sure if you’re the right fit? We are looking for someone who is an expert in either technical customer support, process optimization, or building effective help centers, and who has the willingness to upskill in the other areas.
How you’ll contribute:
Day-to-day customer support
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Communicate with customers to identify their problems and find solutions in a helpful and thoughtful manner
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Identify and monitor recurring issues and customer feedback, and provide weekly updates to team leadership
Process Optimization
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Improve clarity, accuracy, and cohesiveness of our internal and external documentation
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Solve our current inefficiencies, such as our voicemail system
Technical Improvement/Analysis
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Triage and scope bugs reported by customers
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Investigate and submit bugs, communicating effectively with engineering and product
External Documentation
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Build out a new help center for our users
Core Competencies for the Role:
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Process Optimization: make our work easier and faster and proactively identify process inefficiencies and craft solutions
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Communication: communicate effectively with our users, remaining kind even when they’re challenging, as well as communicate with a high degree of technical competency with our team
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Autonomy & Self-Motivation: work independently and act without direction, proactively looking for ways to improve the customer experience
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Technical competency: figure out how technical things work and troubleshoot technical issues
Qualifications:
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GED or high school diploma required, associates or bachelor’s preferred
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Fluent in reading and writing English with excellent spelling and grammar
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Demonstrable track record of process optimization and/or technical customer support
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2+ years of customer support experience
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Experience with CRM technology, ideally Zendesk
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Experience with automation technologies such as Zapier
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Experience troubleshooting bugs and writing bug reports
Preferred Qualifications:
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Experience in academia, with the Academia.edu platform, or with educational technology
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Reading or writing Ruby on Rails and/or SQL
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Experience with REST APIs
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Experience with internal tooling software
This role is hourly, non-exempt
#BI-Remote
Top Skills
What the Team is Saying
What We Do
Academia.edu is the world’s leading platform for researchers and scholars to share their work, discover research and connect with fellow academics globally. Our bold vision: to democratize and accelerate the world's research, enhancing the speed of scientific discovery and technological progress for the benefit of everyone. We imagine a world where accessing academic papers is effortless, keeping track of cutting-edge research is seamless and collaborating with researchers is easier than ever before. Our platform empowers hundreds of millions of scholars worldwide to push the boundaries of human understanding. We believe in the power of knowledge to change lives and the world, and our commitment to this mission drives everything we do.
Academia has attracted $39 million in investment from leading VC firms including Khosla Ventures, True Ventures, Spark Capital, and Tencent. Our work has garnered favorable attention from trade and mainstream media including UK Times, Fortune, Wired, EdTech, Venture Beat, San Francisco Business Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, TechCrunch, Scientific American, and Forbes.
Academia is a proud equal opportunity employer and we are committed to hiring and supporting a diverse workforce. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
Join us as we continue to redefine what's possible in the world of research. Discover careers that challenge, inspire and propel you toward a future where your ideas can truly change the world. At Academia.edu, we're not just shaping the future of research—we're shaping the future of possibilities.
Why Work With Us
At Academia.edu, you’ll get to work with kind humans from interesting and diverse backgrounds. You’ll have intellectually satisfying work, because everyone here loves learning and listening to new ideas. You’ll work in a collaborative environment with high visibility and impact. And you’ll be supported in your whole life by great benefits.
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Academia.edu Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
Three times a week, those of us in the Bay Area work from our office located in the Financial District for collaboration, brainstorming activities, and fun events. We support a work/life balance with generous time off and flexible daily work schedule
