Sr. Engineering Manager, Platform

About Vercel: Vercel is the agentic infrastructure company. We free people and agents to ship what’s next. For more than a decade, Vercel has shaped how the web is built. As the team behind Next.js, v0, and AI SDK, we create products that help builders move from idea to production with speed, security, and exceptional developer experience. Now, software is entering a new era, and the next generation of products will not just be used by people. They will be built, extended, and operated by agents. We are building the platform for that future, trusted by companies like OpenAI, PayPal, Ramp, Supreme, and millions of developers worldwide . Whether you’re building our products, supporting our customers, growing our community, or shaping our story, you’ll help define what comes next. About the role: We are looking for a Sr. Engineering Manager to join our Platform team. You will lead two teams (Reliability & Resilience and Developer Productivity) made up of 7 engineers, with a clear growth path to 10+. You will own strategy, execution, and people leadership across core platform and operational domains including local developer environments, CI/CD, Kubernetes, API gateway, storage and caching, observability, secrets management, cost and capacity management, as well as SaaS vendor relationships . You will report to Sr. Director of Engineering and will be located in the US (preferably NYC or SF; remote considered for exceptional candidates). If you’re based within a pre-determined commuting distance of one of our offices (SF, NY, London, or Berlin), the role includes in-office anchor days on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, even if the role is listed as remote. For location-specific details, please connect with our recruiting team. What you will do: Lead and grow a team of highly independent engineers across Reliability & Resilience and Developer Productivity teams; set org structure, hiring plan, and delivery goals. Own the platform roadmap and execution for improvements in development velocity, iteration speed, platform availability, and deployment safety. Build an industry-leading reliability practice: manage SLOs and error budgets, run incident response and postmortems, and prioritize resilience work across critical services. Operate and evolve core platform services including API gateway, storage and caching infrastructure, secrets management, and observability. Manage capacity and cost: forecasting, right-sizing, tuning, and spend governance tied to workload and growth plans. Own key relationships with critical SaaS vendors supporting our platform stack, including evaluation, contracts/renewals, and operational integration. About you: 3+ years managing engineers (managing managers is a plus) Hands-on technical depth in Kubernetes production operations, CI/CD systems. Track record owning key platform dependencies such as API gateways, caches, petabyte-scale KV stores and databases. Demonstrated ownership of reliability programs: SLOs, error budgets, incident response, postmortems, and measurable reductions in downtime. Proven ability to translate business goals into technical strategy and drive cross-org alignment 8+ years building and operating large-scale distributed systems 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 Bonus if you: Have experience using Vercel platform Benefits: Competitive compensation package, including equity. 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. 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 New York, NY pay range for this role is $208,000-$300,000. Actual salary will be based on job-related skills, experience, and location. Compensation outside of New York, N