### Technical Support Engineer at [Sungrow](https://en.sungrowpower.com/) [Australia Group](https://www.sungrowpower.com.au/)
> Helping customers and installers to resolve technical issues, and process warranty claims. See also here.

2016-03-01–2018-01-31. Inverters, batteries, fault rectification, warranty claims, monitoring, emails, phone calls, technical writing, installation support, residential, commercial, utility-scale, spreadsheets, repair, data entry, product feedback, improving operational efficiency, training.

There was a mix of periods of part-time, full-time, and part-time work (at 2, 3, 4 or 5 days per week), with 290 days worked in total, during the above period of 701 days, with 480 business days. So this works out to be 290/480 = 0.604, or ~60% of full-time, or that I worked 3 days per week on average.

I left the position because I wanted to continue working on a development project with Ethereum, so declined to work full-time. So they replaced me with someone else to work full-time. Otherwise, they were pleased with my performance and how I got along with the team.

My achievements and key responsibilities as a Technical Support Engineer at [Sungrow](https://en.sungrowpower.com/) include:
* providing after sales service support through telephone and email—answering and resolving enquiries from end users, installers, and distributors. Enquiries include about technical issues, installation, monitoring assistance, product enquiries, warranty claims, and other warranty enquiries.
* leading efforts on composing and editing documents, including a knowledge bank, editing datasheets and user manuals, troubleshooting for fault codes, user manual extracts; WiFi setting, resetting and FAQs; and the Sungrow website. Document writers in China would request my review of documents as they neared completion (e.g. manuals for new products).
* liaising with electrical contractors to organise on-site service;
* managing logistics, warehouse and inventory control;
* training technical support engineers;

Projects included:
* investigating requirements for utility scale inverters from AEMO, TNSPs & DNSPs, and liaising between staff and these exernal paries to refine a model of a utility scale inverter to meet these requirements.
* suggesting the development of [a website for Australia](https://www.sungrowpower.com.au/), overseeing its development by another colleague on Zoho sites, and improving it myself, including design, editing, experimenting with a bot and expanding the knowledge base;
* providing feedback for existing products and services and for potential growth areas with new product development, such as improvements to the LCD, automatic settings adjustment for certain faults and CT clamp design; and support for smart grids and electricity trading.
* improving efficiency: for emails with Zoho Desk; spreadsheets; and procuring headsets instead of using a handset for the phones;
* recording voiceovers for videos and assisting with their creation;
* presenting at an Australian Solar Council installer training event in South Australia to promote Sungrow's solar hybrid inverter and battery system, the PowCube 4.8, consisting of the SH5K inverter and the SBP4K8 battery;
* creating a [Twitter account](https://twitter.com/Sungrow_Power); and
* creating and managing a survey for customers who had their inverter replaced, collecting responses via email and phone, analysing results, and following up on feedback for improvement.

### Q&A

**Please provide an example of a project or program you have developed, implemented and evaluated that demonstrates how you have applied your interpersonal communication, engagement, collaboration and stakeholder management skills in delivering a program or project.**

Following are some more detailed examples that demonstrate interpersonal skills, and other skills.

There are more recent examples with work in the crypto sector, but as a Technical Support Engineer at Sungrow, I initiated and led efforts on developing an internal knowledge base, and external documentation, to improve the efficiency of handling technical support enquiries, as well as to more readily enable customers and solar installers to independently deal with enquiries, concerns and issues. I also proposed and oversaw the development of a website for the service team, which is available at https://www.sungrowpower.com.au/. I was responsible for editing and compiling the documentation. Much of the content and documentation available was prepared by myself.

This knowledge base and documentation was shared with colleagues and customers, used to train new colleagues, and bring the team up to speed on how to deal with new complex cases or improve the efficiency and quality of service in handling existing types of enquiries.

Other projects involved other external engagement with different stakeholders to the end users, solar installers and solar retailers, who comprised the majority of technical support enquiries. One project involved liaising with Transmission Network Service Providers (TNSPs), Distribution Network Service Providers (DNSPs), and AEMO, to understand their requirements for utility scale inverters, while also liaising with an overseas colleague and the sales director to develop a model for a Sungrow central inverter, in order to meet their requirements with this model and use it in the Australian market. Multiple follow-ups were required at times with some TNSPs and DNSPs in order to fully understand their requirements. There were a few issues that were found with the model, and myself and the Technical Executive were concerned about the overseas colleague’s performance, who was responsible for developing the model. We decided to seek an external consultant, so I arranged with DigSilent to further develop this model.

Another project involved contacting the Vector Network in New Zealand, and following up multiple times, in order to understand thoroughly what their requirements were so that Sungrow could update their residential inverters and/or installation procedures to be able to continue to sell inverters in their network.

Other projects such as the development of the website, creation of a Twitter account to share updates, and addition of a bot and live chat to the website, were met with limited enthusiasm, and required considerable influencing skills to get them up and running. The website and Twitter accounts are still online. Despite being able to answer many common enquiries, the chat bot and live chat were removed soon after I added them, as I was leaving the position and there was limited support available for them. Nevertheless, other websites do use live chat and chat bots.

**Please tell us about when you have had to coordinate multiple activities and deadlines. How did you go about this including your approach to managing projects?**

At Sungrow, my first priority was customer service. Projects were addressed only after all phone calls and emails had been answered.

My responsibilities grew to include work on a number of projects, such as the knowledge base project and others described previously. Although working on a variety of projects simultaneously was occasionally challenging, whenever there was any ambiguity about priorities, I sought clarification from my supervisor.