Forward-Deployed Engineer
Salary not listed • Hybrid - London, Berlin • Full-time
Posted 9mo ago
This job has been open for more than 60 days. It may no longer be actively hiring, so check with the company before putting a lot into an application.
About the job
Vercel is seeking a Senior Forward-Deployed Engineer to join their Professional Services team. This role involves working directly with enterprise customers to drive significant outcomes in frontend modernization, platform migrations, and AI adoption. You will architect high-performance applications, build production AI solutions, and lead complex migrations, often hands-on with customer teams. The position offers high agency and autonomy, requiring you to navigate ambiguous environments, assess technical debt, design strategies, and deliver measurable business value while building strong customer relationships. The role has two primary profiles: Next.js experts focused on code optimization and AI instrumentation, and AI builders focused on identifying, evangelizing, and building AI applications and agentic workflows.
Responsibilities
- Build production AI solutions using Vercel's eve framework, AI SDK, and AI Cloud infrastructure, including conversational interfaces, agents, MCP servers, and agentic workflows.
- Lead complex frontend migrations, modernizing legacy applications to Next.js, including Pages to App Router transitions and large-scale codebase transformations.
- Conduct code audits to analyze and improve website performance, identifying bottlenecks and optimization opportunities.
- Architect and implement high-performance Next.js applications using advanced features like App Router, Server Components, and streaming.
- Embed with strategic customers to build production applications within their systems and constraints.
- Drive enablement and knowledge transfer through workshops, pair programming, and documentation.
- Navigate complex enterprise environments by building relationships with stakeholders and translating technical capabilities into business outcomes.
- Contribute to service evolution by identifying repeatable patterns and building reusable components.
Requirements
- 6+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2 years in a customer-facing technical role.
- Experience using AI instrumentation for building and deploying web applications, backend systems, and/or agentic workflows.
- High agency and comfort with ambiguity; ability to navigate complex organizations and drive projects.
- Exceptional communication skills for technical discovery, executive presentations, mentoring, and relationship building.
- Business acumen to understand customer objectives and translate technical capabilities into ROI.
- Willingness to travel occasionally to customer sites.
- Expert-level TypeScript skills (for Next.js-focused candidates).
- Deep expertise in Next.js, including App Router, Server Components, SSR, SSG, and ISR (for Next.js-focused candidates).
- Demonstrated experience leading frontend migrations to Next.js (for Next.js-focused candidates).
- Mastery of React and its ecosystem, including state management and performance optimization (for Next.js-focused candidates).
- Production experience with LLMs and AI applications, including agent development (for AI-focused candidates).