Engineering Director, Vercel for Platforms
Vercel is hiring an Engineering Director, Vercel for Platforms in San Francisco, United States. Level rates it ; you can apply on Vercel.
Level's read on this job
- On Level's scale, this role is Little AI ●○○○: aI is not part of the work.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include OpenAI, Kubernetes and Docker.
- Level classifies it as a lead role.
- Level lists 94 other open roles at Vercel.
- The role was posted within the past week.
AI in this role
Lead an engineering team building deployment infrastructure for multi-tenant platforms, including AI app builders and coding agents.
About Vercel:
Vercel is the agentic infrastructure company, freeing people and agents to ship what's next. For more than a decade we've helped builders move from idea to production with speed, security, and exceptional developer experience.
Now we're scaling our products for both agents and people to ship and run software, built in the open and trusted by OpenAI, PayPal, Ramp, Supreme, and millions of developers worldwide.
About the Role
You’ll lead the engineering team responsible for Vercel for Platforms. This product enables companies to build their own platforms on Vercel, from AI app builders and coding agents to SaaS products serving thousands of customers. We provide the infrastructure to programmatically deploy and run their customers’ applications, with custom domains, tenant isolation, and a seamless developer experience. This team is strategic to Vercel’s growth. Winning a platform means powering the applications and businesses built on top of it.
We’re looking for an engineering leader to own this horizontal team. While the team is intentionally small, the scope spans deployment infrastructure, domains, identity, billing, observability, and developer tooling. It’s a deep systems and scale challenge: evolving Vercel to support platforms managing millions of tenants and applications while making that complexity feel simple. This role combines cross-team coordination, technical direction, product judgment, and broad organizational influence to shape a strategic growth engine for Vercel
This position is hybrid based in SF
What You Will Do:
- Build and grow a high-performing team of engineers through hiring, coaching, mentorship, and thoughtful career development.
- Foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, and high engineering standards while creating an environment where engineers can do their best work.
- Partner closely with Product, Design, and other engineering teams to define roadmap priorities and execute against ambitious product goals.
- Occasionally review and contribute code to stay close to the technology and unblock the team when needed.
- Drive operational excellence through strong engineering processes, incident management, and continuous improvement.
- Balance short-term product delivery with long-term investments in technical quality and platform scalability.
About you:
- 8+ years building and operating large-scale platforms or multi-tenant systems
- 5+ years managing engineers
- Strong technical foundation. You can review system designs, understand data model challenges, and evaluate infrastructure tradeoffs
- Proven ability to translate business goals into technical strategy and drive cross-org alignment
- Track record establishing trust, psychological safety, and clear expectations; skilled at timely, candid feedback
- Strong facilitator in technical conflict. You listen, synthesize, decide, and bring the team with you
- Clear communicator who sets expectations, gives direct feedback, and builds trust across teams
Benefits & Compensation:
- Competitive compensation package and stock options.
- Comprehensive, inclusive healthcare package.
- Opportunities for mentorship and professional growth, including attendance at industry events.
- Flexible Time Off with a recommended minimum of four weeks per year, plus paid holidays.
- Remote-friendly culture with teammates across multiple time zones.
- Dedicated equipment and work-from-home budget to help you create an effective workspace.
The San Francisco, CA base pay range for this role is 262,000-348,000. Actual salary will be based on job-related skills, experience, and location. Compensation outside of San Francisco may be adjusted based on employee location. The total compensation package may include benefits, equity-based compensation, and eligibility for a company bonus or variable pay program depending on the role. Your recruiter can share more details during the hiring process.
Disclosures:
- Privacy: Please review our Job Applicant Privacy Policy for more information on how we handle your data.
- Equal Opportunity: 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.
How we rate this
Engineering Director, Vercel for Platforms at Vercel rates 35 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Little AI. AI is not part of the work.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a project where platform engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where team management was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where system architecture was part of your work. What did you do?
- Walk me through how you've used OpenAI in your day-to-day work.
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Platform Engineering, Distributed Systems, Team Management, System Architecture, and OpenAI. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
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