Forward-Deployed Engineer

About the role:

We are looking for a Forward-Deployed Engineer 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.

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.

Our Forward-Deployed Engineer 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.

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 migrations—modernizing legacy React, Vue, or other frameworks to Next.js, including Pages to App Router transitions, incremental adoption strategies, and large-scale codebase transformations.
2. Conduct technical assessments and code audits, analyzing customer codebases for performance bottlenecks, architectural anti-patterns, and optimization opportunities—delivering actionable roadmaps that drive measurable improvements.
3. 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.
4. 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 solutions using Vercel's AI SDK and AI Cloud—including conversational interfaces, production agents, MCP servers, and agentic workflows that transform customer operations.
6. Embed with strategic customers to build production applications—working within their systems, understanding their constraints, and shipping TypeScript code that goes live.
7. Drive enablement and knowledge transfer through workshops, pair programming, and documentation—ensuring customer teams can extend and maintain solutions independently.
8. Navigate complex enterprise environments by building relationships with stakeholders across engineering, product, and executive teams—translating technical capabilities into business outcomes.
9. Participate in pre-sales activities by providing technical expertise during discovery calls, scoping sessions, and proposal development for migrations, audits, and AI transformation engagements.
10. Contribute to our service evolution by identifying repeatable patterns, building reusable components, and sharing implementation insights back to Product and Engineering teams.

About you:

• 5+ years of experience in 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 skills—this 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 migrations—you've modernized legacy applications to Next.js, navigated incremental adoption strategies, and understand the challenges of migrating large codebases in production environments.
• Mastery of React and its ecosystem, including advanced state management, performance optimization, and modern patterns like streaming, suspense, and concurrent features.
• Production experience with LLMs and AI applications, including prompt engineering, agent development, and tool use patterns. Familiarity with Vercel's AI SDK is strongly preferred.
• High agency with comfort in ambiguity—you thrive when given a problem to solve rather than a task to complete, and you can navigate complex organizations to drive outcomes.
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to conduct technical discovery, present to executives, mentor engineers, and build lasting customer relationships—all with a low-ego, collaborative approach.
• Business acumen to understand customer objectives, translate technical capabilities into ROI, and identify expansion opportunities throughout engagement lifecycles.
• Willingness to travel 25-40% to customer sites for embedded work and 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 and Core Web Vitals, with experience diagnosing and fixing LCP, CLS, and INP issues at scale.
• Have experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP), building MCP servers, or implementing complex tool-use patterns in production AI applications.
• Have led enterprise AI transformation initiatives, including building production agents that automated manual processes or replaced legacy systems.
• Have worked with micro-frontends, module federation, or multi-team frontend architectures.
• Have contributed to the 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, and multi-region architectures.
• Have a background in financial services, healthcare, retail/e-commerce, or media—industries with complex frontend ecosystems and growing AI adoption.
• Have spoken at conferences or published thought leadership on frontend architecture, migrations, or AI applications.

Benefits:

• Great compensation package and stock options.
• Inclusive Healthcare Package.
• Learn and Grow - we provide mentorship and send you to events that help you build your network and skills.
• Flexible Time Off - Flexible vacation policy with a recommended 4-weeks per year, and paid holidays.
• Remote Friendly - Work with teammates from different time zones across the globe.
• We will provide you the gear you need to do your role, and a WFH budget for you to outfit your space as needed.

The San Francisco, CA base pay range for this role is $137,000.00 - $207,000.00.  This salary range is an estimate. Actual salary will be based on job related skills, experience and location. Pay ranges outside San Francisco may be  adjusted based on employee location.  The total compensation package also includes benefits and equity-based compensation. Your recruiter can share more about the specific pay range for your location during the hiring process.

Vercel is committed to fostering and empowering an inclusive community within our organization. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Vercel encourages everyone to apply for our available positions, even if they don't necessarily check every box on the job description.