Forward-Deployed Engineer

About Vercel:

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. 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.

About the role:

We are looking for a Forward-Deployed Engineerto join our Professional Services team. This is not a traditional consulting role1you will embed directly with our most strategic enterprise customers to drive transformational outcomes across frontend modernization, platform migrations, and AI adoption. In this role, you will lead complex Next.js migrations, architect high-performance applications, and build production AI solutions1all 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. 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 value1all while building long-term relationships that expand our partnership with each customer. 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.

What you will do:

1. Lead complex frontend migrations1modernizing legacy React, Vue, or other frameworks to Next.js, including Pages to App Router transitions, incremental adoption strategies, and large-scale codebase transformations.

Conduct technical assessments and code audits, analyzing customer codebases for performance bottlenecks, architectural anti-patterns, and optimization opportunitiesdelivering actionable roadmaps that drive measurable improvements.

Architect and implement high-performance Next.js applications, leveraging App Router, Server Components, streaming ISR edge functions ,and advanced rendering strategies to meet enterprise scale and performance requirements.

Optimize Core Web Vitals and application performance, using tools like Vercel Speed Insights to diagnose issues and implement fixes that improve SEO conversion rates ,and user experience.

5. Build production AI solutionsusing Vercel's AI SDK and AI Cloudincluding conversational interfaces production agents MCP servers ,and agentic workflows that transform customer operations. 6. Embed with strategic customersto build production applicationsworking within their systems understanding their constraints ,and shipping TypeScript code that goes live. 7. Drive enablement and knowledge transferthrough workshops pair programming ,and documentationensuring customer teams can extend and maintain solutions independently.

Navigate complex enterprise environmentsby building relationships with stakeholders across engineering product ,and executive teamstranslating technical capabilities into business outcomes.

9. Participate in pre-sales activitiesby providing technical expertise during discovery calls scoping sessions ,and proposal development for migrations audits ,and AI transformation engagements. 10. Contribute to our service evolutionby identifying repeatable patterns building reusable components ,and sharing implementation insights back to Product and Engineering teams.

About you:

• 5+ years of experiencein software engineering with at least 2 years in a customer-facing technical role (consulting solutions engineering forward deployed engineering or technical founder experience).
• Expert-level TypeScript skillsthis is your primary language . You write production TypeScript daily and have strong opinions on type safety patterns ,and tooling.
• Deep expertise in Next.js, 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.
• Demonstrated experience leading frontend migrationsyou've modernized legacy applications to Next.js navigated incremental adoption strategies ,and understand the challenges of migrating large codebases in production environments.
• Mastery of Reactand its ecosystem including advanced state management performance optimization modern patterns like streaming suspense concurrent features.
• Production experience with LLMs and AI applications, including prompt engineering agent development tool use patterns . Familiarity with Vercel's AI SDK is strongly preferred.
• High agency with comfort in ambiguityyou thrive when given a problem to solve rather than a task to complete you can navigate complex organizations to drive outcomes.
• Exceptional communication skillswith ability to conduct technical discovery present to executives mentor engineers build lasting customer relationshipsall with low-ego collaborative approach.
• Business acumento understand customer objectives translate technical capabilities into ROI identify expansion opportunities throughout engagement lifecycles.
• Willingness to travel 25-40%to customer sites for embedded work relationship building.

Bonus if you:

• Have led large-scale migrations from legacy frameworks (Create React App Gatsby custom webpack setups) to Next.js in enterprise environments.
• Have expertise in performance optimization Core Web Vitals experience diagnosing fixing LCP CLS INP issues at scale.
• Have experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP) building MCP servers implementing complex tool-use patterns in production AI applications.
• Have led enterprise AI transformation initiatives including building production agents that automated manual processes replaced legacy systems.
• Have worked with micro-frontends module federation multi-team frontend architectures.
• Have contributed to Next.js React or AI SDK open-source projects or maintain popular related libraries.
• Have experience with enterprise deployment patterns including security reviews compliance requirements multi-region architectures.
• Have background in financial services healthcare retail/e-commerce media industries with complex frontend ecosystems growing AI adoption.
• Have spoken at conferences published thought leadership on frontend architecture migrations AI applications.

Benefits:

• Great compensation package stock options .
• Inclusive Healthcare Package .
• Learn Grow - mentorship events help build network skills .
• Flexible Time Off - Flexible vacation policy recommended 4-weeks per year paid holidays .
• Remote Friendly - Work teammates different time zones across globe .
• Provide gear needed role WFH budget outfit space as needed .

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