Customer Technical Advocate

Overview:

As a Technical Customer Advocate (TCA), you will be the primary technical liaison between customers and TRT, building trusted advisor relationships and advocating for customer interests within ​. You will bring up-to-date, detailed technical knowledge of customer networks (NZ & Pacific Islands) and product expertise, while providing technical guidance to deliver customer-oriented solutions.

In this role, you will monitor customer networks for repeated failures or isolated issues, review technical alerts, and attend APJ PCT calls for hot issues. Leveraging this knowledge, you will implement proactive and preventative activities to safeguard customer networks from recurring and potential issues.

You will also support customer IP/MPLS networks by providing expert-level technical advice to customer Operations staff, following the service delivery framework of customer. Close collaboration with both customers and internal teams will be key to ensuring seamless support and delivery. Internal stakeholders include the regional Technical Assistance Centre (TAC), global Technical Expertise Centre (TEC), R&D, Repair & Exchange Services (RES), Quality Team, Local/Regional Customer Engineering teams, Business Development Management team (BDM), rPLM/PLM, Care Delivery Team, and the Account Team.

Beyond operational support, you will also be involved in project-based responsibilities. These include assisting in post-sales upgrade, testing, and integration of the IP/MPLS product portfolio and its associated management systems. You will be expected to understand current High-Level and Detailed-Level Designs and reflect how these designs should be implemented during network build phases. This may involve tasks such as topology diagram updates, IP address planning, BGP peering, MPLS path planning, and management network planning.

Key Tasks and Responsibilities

• Follow the CARE Framework and RASCI structure in the NI APAC CARE Framework, which defines roles for Care PM, CTA, and SBU.
• Represent the Technical Support Service in front of customers, managing conflicts and challenging situations effectively.
• Act as the voice of the customer within TRT for technical support activities.
• Provide customer-facing communication on operational, technical, and service quality issues; make timely recommendations.
• Analyse and communicate product release notes and technical alerts.
• Provide technical guidance for upgrades/retrofits where in scope.
• Support Emergency Management (EM) teams in technical aspects of outage management.
• Maintain accurate information about customer environments and networks in relevant systems/databases.
• Troubleshoot, diagnose, and advise corrective/preventive actions on technical issues, working alongside Support Engineers.
• Escalate and collaborate promptly with higher-tier support levels and contracted third-party vendors where required.
• Ensure Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance and maintain strong customer relationships through appropriate follow-up and documentation.
• Monitor customer networks for repeated failures or isolated issues, review technical alerts, and apply proactive measures to prevent problems.
• Collaborate closely with Care Program Managers (CaPM) to produce and deliver operational reports to customers.
• Prepare and present regular ticket status updates to customers using clear presentation materials.
• Provide technical support to testing and validation functions, including executing tests in agreed failure nodes/areas of likely delivery failure.
• Prepare implementation and migration specifications, ensuring alignment with customer design guidelines and requirements.
• Ensure network safety, service quality, and security standards during solution deployment and introduction of new platforms/services.
• Support implementation activities such as service configuration, documentation, soft launch, full market launch, and handover to customer operations teams.
• Develop solution training materials and conduct solution overview training sessions.
• Contribute to customer design guidelines, including dimensioning and capacity planning changes.
• Support seamless integration of new technologies into customer environments, including training, process definition, and alignment with operational teams.
• Stay aware of customer network health, new product introduction (NPI), rollout activities, and tendering negotiations within the SWS scope, raising suggestions or concerns where appropriate.
• Share potential sales opportunities with Care Program Management (CaPM) or Account Management.
• Work effectively in a mixed environment, applying best practices and advanced analytical skills to solve complex problems.
• Act as a professional advisor and mentor to peers, teams, and taskforces.

Knowledge and Experience

• 4–6 years' experience in customer-facing technical roles (telecom, IT, or related domains).
• Strong knowledge of IP networks, infrastructure, and technical support delivery.
• Advanced skills in troubleshooting, operations, and customer engineering.
• Degree in Computer Science, IT, Engineering, or equivalent.
• Broad knowledge of Nokia's IP portfolio, including but not limited to the 7750SR, 7250IXR, 7210SAS, 7705SAR, SR Linux, Data Centre Fabric Solution, Event Driven Automation (EDA), and Network Services Platform (NSP), as well as IP/MPLS.
• Management experience and advanced skills in technical support delivery and customer engineering within the IP domain.

Technical Skills and Knowledge

• Ability to document information clearly and effectively.
• Broad multivendor product knowledge.
• Business case development skills and cost management expertise.
• Experience documenting technical procedures and requirements.
• Experience in maintenance, network operations, and/or technical support activities.
• Strong background in telecom technical domains with expertise in specific technical products.
• Knowledge and understanding of multi-technology and multivendor environments.
• Proficiency in proactive and preventative maintenance strategies, tools, and techniques.
• Network troubleshooting and problem isolation skills.
• Solution troubleshooting abilities.
• Strong understanding of customer network topology.

Processes and Tools

• Familiarity with Service Assurance Ops tools, including ticketing systems, knowledge management, reporting platforms, performance management systems, dispatch tools, online customer systems, notification tools, and time-tracking systems.
• Understanding of technical support processes.
• Proficiency with technical support tools such as Salesforce, Knowledge Management platforms, Heatmap, and Power BI.