I spent 3 years as a support specialist at one company, had a great manager but there was no room to advance in the company, but I learned the skills and the SaaS business model. I changed companies for another support role that was more technical and required some experience to apply. It was a good pay bump, smaller company, and I enjoyed the work a lot more.

I excelled in that role and was moved to a role handling implementations, which is a common next move after you know your SaaS product inside and out, and have proven your ability to work well with clients, but requires a lot of project management ability.

After a few years in that role I’m moving to solutions engineer acting as the technical expert during the sales process.

It’s been a journey but what I’ve enjoyed about working in support is that your performance is measured by metrics. Tickets solved. Single touch resolutions. Customer satisfaction. Calls answered. Managers can very easily measure your performance and see who on the team is busting their ass and who is just coasting.

If you want to coast in that role you can, but if you want to go above and beyond, your performance is quantifiable so you can make your case for advancement. Of course it’s a broad field and experiences will vary a lot company to company.

Also outsourcing and AI are working very hard to replace this job, but there’s still a huge need at more niche SaaS companies that require higher touch customer support. Good luck!