Director of Professional Services (AI)

Location: Hybrid, based in San Francisco, Austin, or New York City, with three days per week in the office

Base pay: $240,000–$300,000 annually in San Francisco, plus bonus; compensation may vary by employee location.

Company

Vercel builds agentic infrastructure and developer products including Next.js, v0, and AI SDK.

What you will do

• Build, lead, and develop the Professional Services organization, including hiring, training, career development, and compensation.
• Define engagement models, staffing, qualification criteria, delivery methodology, and success metrics.
• Own strategic customer engagements from discovery and technical scoping through production deployment and stabilization.
• Establish services packaging, pricing, capacity planning, utilization, margin, and resource allocation models.
• Participate in architecture reviews, system design, and critical engagement delivery.
• Create handoff protocols, reusable playbooks, reference architectures, and customer-informed product feedback.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, forward deployed engineering, or technical consulting, including at least five years leading customer-facing engineering or delivery teams.
• Experience building a team, function, or service line from zero, including hiring, methodology, and operating model development.
• Strong knowledge of JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Next.js, Node.js, and cloud infrastructure, with the ability to review code and architecture.
• Experience building or deploying LLM-powered applications and understanding model behavior in product decisions.
• Commercial experience scoping, pricing, and delivering enterprise technical engagements, including utilization, margin, and capacity tradeoffs.
• Demonstrated success embedding with customer engineering teams to deliver complex production systems.

Nice to have

• Experience building with Vercel, Next.js, AI SDK, or v0.
• Leadership experience in forward deployed or embedded engineering at an AI-native or developer platform company.
• Experience owning a professional services P&L or defining services pricing and packaging.
• Experience representing a professional services function at conferences, executive briefings, or large-scale events.

Culture & Benefits

• Competitive compensation package with potential equity and bonus eligibility.
• Inclusive healthcare package.
• Mentorship and opportunities to attend professional events.
• Flexible time off.
• Company-provided equipment and a work-from-home budget.

Hiring process

• Applicants explain why they are a good fit for the Director of Professional Services role.
• Recruiters provide additional details about total compensation during the hiring process.