Forward-Deployed Engineer at Vercel

Worldwide

<h2>About Vercel:</h2> <p><span>Vercel gives developers the tools and cloud infrastructure to build, scale, and secure a faster, more personalized web. As the team behind v0, Next.js, and AI SDK, Vercel helps customers like Ramp, Supreme, PayPal, and Under Armour build for the AI-native web.<br/></span></p> <p><span>Our mission is to enable the world to ship the best products. That starts with creating a place where everyone can do their best work. Whether you're building on our platform, supporting our customers, or shaping our story: You can just ship things.</span></p><h2>About the role:</h2> <p>We are looking for a<span> Forward-Deployed Engineer</span><span> </span>to join our Professional Services team. This is not a traditional consulting role—you will embed directly with our most strategic enterprise customers to drive transformational outcomes across frontend modernization, platform migrations, and AI adoption.</p> <p>In this role, you will lead complex Next.js migrations, architect high-performance applications, and build production AI solutions—all within customer environments. You'll work hands-on-keyboard alongside customer teams, whether you're migrating a legacy React application to App Router, conducting a deep-dive code audit, or deploying production agents using Vercel's AI SDK. You will be equally comfortable leading a technical discovery session with engineering leadership as you are refactoring a complex rendering strategy or optimizing an agentic workflow.</p> <p>Our Forward-Deployed Engineers operate with high agency and autonomy. You'll navigate ambiguous enterprise environments, assess technical debt, design migration strategies, and deliver measurable business value—all while building long-term relationships that expand our partnership with each customer.</p> <p>You will report to the Director of Professional Services and will be remote-first with significant travel (25-40%) to customer sites for embedded engagements.</p> <h2>What you will do:</h2> <ol> <li><strong>Lead complex frontend migrations</strong>—modernizing legacy React, Vue, or other frameworks to Next.js, including Pages to App Router transitions, incremental adoption strategies, and large-scale codebase transformations.</li> <li><strong>Conduct technical assessments and code audits</strong>, analyzing customer codebases for performance bottlenecks, architectural anti-patterns, and optimization opportunities—delivering actionable roadmaps that drive measurable improvements.</li> <li><strong>Architect and implement high-performance Next.js applications</strong>, leveraging App Router, Server Components, streaming, ISR, edge functions, and advanced rendering strategies to meet enterprise scale and performance requirements.</li> <li><strong>Optimize Core Web Vitals and application performance</strong>, using tools like Vercel Speed Insights to diagnose issues and implement fixes that improve SEO, conversion rates, and user experience.</li> <li><strong>Build production AI solutions</strong><span> </span>using Vercel's AI SDK and AI Cloud—including conversational interfaces, production agents, MCP servers, and agentic workflows that transform customer operations.</li> <li><strong>Embed with strategic customers</strong><span> </span>to build production applications—working within their systems, understanding their constraints, and shipping TypeScript code that goes live.</li> <li><strong>Drive enablement and knowledge transfer</strong><span> </span>through workshops, pair programming, and documentation—ensuring customer teams can extend and maintain solutions independently.</li> <li><strong>Navigate complex enterprise environments</strong><span> </span>by building relationships with stakeholders across engineering, product, and executive teams—translating technical capabilities into business outcomes.</li> <li><strong>Participate in pre-sales activities</strong><span> </span>by providing technical expertise during discovery calls, scoping sessions, and proposal development for migrations, audits, and AI transformation engagements.</li> <li><strong>Contribute to our service evolution</strong><span> </span>by identifying repeatable patterns, building reusable components, and sharing implementation insights back to Product and Engineering teams.</li> </ol> <h2>About you:</h2> <ul> <li><strong>5+ years of experience</strong><span> </span>in software engineering with at least 2 years in a customer-facing technical role (consulting, solutions engineering, forward deployed engineering, or technical founder experience).</li> <li><strong>Expert-level TypeScript skills</strong>—this is your primary language. You write production TypeScript daily and have strong opinions on type safety, patterns, and tooling.</li> <li><strong>Deep expertise in Next.js</strong>, with a proven track record of architecting and delivering complex applications using App Router, Server Components, server-side rendering (SSR), static generation (SSG), incremental static regeneration (ISR), and edge functions.</li> <li><strong>Demonstrated experience leading frontend migrations</strong>—you've modernized legacy applications to Next.js, navigated incremental adoption strategies, and understand the challenges of migrating large codebases in production environments.</li> <li><strong>Mastery of React</strong><span> </span>and its ecosystem, including advanced state management, performance optimization, and modern patterns like streaming, suspense, and concurrent features.</li> <li><strong>Production experience with LLMs and AI applications</strong>, including prompt engineering, agent development, and tool use patterns. Familiarity with Vercel's AI SDK is strongly preferred.</li> <li><strong>High agency with comfort in ambiguity</strong>—you thrive when given a problem to solve rather than a task to complete, and you can navigate complex organizations to drive outcomes.</li> <li><strong>Exceptional communication skills</strong><span> </span>with the ability to conduct technical discovery, present to executives, mentor engineers, and build lasting customer relationships—all with a low-ego, collaborative approach.</li> <li><strong>Business acumen</strong><span> </span>to understand customer objectives, translate technical capabilities into ROI, and identify expansion opportunities throughout engagement lifecycles.</li> <li><strong>Willingness to travel 25-40%</strong><span> </span>to customer sites for embedded work and relationship building.</li> </ul> <h2>Bonus if you:</h2> <ul> <li>Have led large-scale migrations from legacy frameworks (Create React App, Gatsby, custom webpack setups) to Next.js in enterprise environments.</li> <li>Have expertise in performance optimization and Core Web Vitals, with experience diagnosing and fixing LCP, CLS, and INP issues at scale.</li> <li>Have experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP), building MCP servers, or implementing complex tool-use patterns in production AI applications.</li> <li>Have led enterprise AI transformation initiatives, including building production agents that automated manual processes or replaced legacy systems.</li> <li>Have worked with micro-frontends, module federation, or multi-team frontend architectures.</li> <li>Have contributed to the Next.js, React, or AI SDK open-source projects, or maintain popular related libraries.</li> <li>Have experience with enterprise deployment patterns including security reviews, compliance requirements, and multi-region architectures.</li> <li>Have a background in financial services, healthcare, retail/e-commerce, or media—industries with complex frontend ecosystems and growing AI adoption.</li> <li>Have spoken at conferences or published thought leadership on frontend architecture, migrations, or AI applications.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>Benefits:</strong></h2> <ul> <li>Great compensation package and stock options.</li> <li>Inclusive Healthcare Package.</li> <li>Learn and Grow - we provide mentorship and send you to events that help you build your network and skills.</li> <li>Flexible Time Off - Flexible vacation policy with a recommended 4-weeks per year, and paid holidays.</li> <li>Remote Friendly - Work with teammates from different time zones across the globe.</li> <li>We will provide you the gear you need to do your role, and a WFH budget for you to outfit your space as needed.</li> </ul> <p> </p>