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Remote Forward Deployed Engineer Jobs in California

Vercel

Forward-Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site +1

This role is remote-first with travel to customer sites expected occasionally. Travel requirements ... forward deployed engineering, or technical founder experience). * Experience using AI ...

LiveKit

Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site +1

$180K - $320K/yr

Forward Deployed Engineers partner closely with customers to design systems, prototype solutions, and solve complex technical challenges as teams move from experimentation to production. You'll work ...

Figma

Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site +1

Forward Deployed Engineers at Figma sit at the intersection of engineering, product, and our most strategic customers. In this role, you'll work hands-on with customers adopting emerging Figma ...

Turgon AI

Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site +1

By combining elite forward-deployed engineers with our proprietary AI Agent Swarms, we map, document, and modernize massive legacy infrastructures in days, not quarters. We are turning CIOs back into ...

Workato

Forward Deployed Engineer

Palo Alto, CA · On-site +1

Quartz ranked us the #1 best company for remote workers Responsibilities We are looking for an experienced Forward Deployed Engineer to join our Forward Deployed Engineering team.. In this role, you ...

Hirevouch

Forward Deployed Engineer

Redwood City, CA · On-site +1

ABOUT THE ROLE As a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll deliver our voice AI solutions to enterprise clients, embedding with their teams to build production-ready systems. You'll bridge ...

Nextracker

Forward Deployed Engineer (AI)

Fremont, CA · On-site +1

Forward Deployed Engineer (AI) Onsite - Fremont, California This position is required to be onsite in Fremont, California, and remote work arrangements are not being considered for this role.

Hirevouch

Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site +1

$134K - $162K/yr

You will use a unique mix of engineering, product, and sales to deliver data on high stakes ... deploy expert teams that help customers like Google and ElevenLabs achieve breakthrough AI ...

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Remote Forward Deployed Engineer information

What is a remote forward deployed engineer?

A Remote Forward Deployed Engineer is a technical professional who works remotely to help implement and customize software solutions directly for clients, often acting as a bridge between the engineering team and the customer. They typically travel (virtually or occasionally onsite) to work closely with clients, understand their needs, and ensure the successful deployment and integration of products. Their role often includes troubleshooting, coding, and providing support tailored to each client’s requirements. This position requires strong technical skills, excellent communication, and the ability to adapt solutions for diverse customer environments.

How does a remote forward deployed engineer typically collaborate with client teams and internal stakeholders?

As a Remote Forward Deployed Engineer, you will regularly interact with both client teams and internal product or engineering teams. Collaboration often happens through virtual meetings, shared documentation, and project management tools. You'll be expected to translate client requirements into actionable engineering tasks, communicate technical constraints or possibilities, and coordinate deployments or troubleshooting efforts. Successful engineers in this role are proactive communicators and can bridge the gap between user needs and technical solutions, even when working across time zones.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a remote forward deployed engineer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Remote Forward Deployed Engineer, you need strong software engineering skills, problem-solving abilities, and a background in computer science or a related field. Experience with programming languages, cloud platforms, and deployment tools—along with familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and relevant certifications—are typically required. Exceptional communication, adaptability, and self-motivation are crucial soft skills for collaborating across distributed teams and interfacing with clients. These skills and qualities ensure successful implementation of technical solutions tailored to client needs, even in remote and dynamic environments.

What are the most commonly searched types of Forward Deployed Engineer jobs in California?

The most popular types of Forward Deployed Engineer jobs in California are:

What are popular job titles related to Remote Forward Deployed Engineer jobs in California?

For Remote Forward Deployed Engineer jobs in California, the most frequently searched job titles are:

What job categories do people searching Remote Forward Deployed Engineer jobs in California look for?

The top searched job categories for Remote Forward Deployed Engineer jobs in California are:

What cities in California are hiring for Remote Forward Deployed Engineer jobs?

Cities in California with the most Remote Forward Deployed Engineer job openings:

Remote Forward Deployed Engineer jobs near you
Infographic showing various Remote Forward Deployed Engineer job openings in California as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 86% Full Time, 9% Part Time, and 5% Contract. Highlights an 92% Physical, 3% Hybrid, and 5% Remote job distribution.

Forward-Deployed Engineer

Vercel

San Francisco, CA • On-site, Remote

Full-time

Medical, PTO

Re-posted 18 days ago

Job description

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 Senior Forward-Deployed Engineer to join our Professional Services team. This role is focused on working directly alongside developer teams in 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 eve framework and AI SDK.
Our Forward-Deployed Engineers 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.
There are two main profiles for this role: Next.js experts, and AI builders. Next.js experts work on deep customer code optimization, performance audits, AEO and SEO, and teaching customers how to build Next.js apps with AI instrumentation - such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, etc with Next.js and Vercel agent skills. The AI builder profile is less focused on deep Next.js experience, and more on identifying, evangelizing, and building AI applications and agentic workflows. Your job in this role will be to understand customers' businesses, scope, design, and build AI agents, and prove their value. The two profiles are not mutually exclusive and we appreciate expertise in both.
You will report to the Global Manager of Forward Deployed Engineering. This role is remote-first with travel to customer sites expected occasionally. Travel requirements vary, but most of our engineers travel no more than 3-4 days every other month.
What you will do:
  1. Build production AI solutions using Vercel's eve framework, AI SDK, and AI Cloud infrastructure, including conversational interfaces, production agents, MCP servers, and agentic workflows that transform customer operations.
  2. 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. Automation of migrations is key to engineering efficiency.
  3. Conduct code audits and help analyze and improve website performance, analyzing customer codebases for performance bottlenecks, architectural anti-patterns, and optimization opportunities - delivering actionable roadmaps that drive measurable improvements.
  4. Architect and implement high-performance Next.js applications, leveraging App Router, Server Components, streaming, ISR, and advanced rendering strategies to meet enterprise scale and performance requirements.
  5. Embed with strategic customers to build production applications - working within their systems, understanding their constraints, and shipping TypeScript code that goes live.
  6. Drive enablement and knowledge transfer through workshops, pair programming, and documentation - ensuring customer teams can extend and maintain solutions independently.
  7. Navigate complex enterprise environments by building relationships with stakeholders across engineering, product, and executive teams - translating technical capabilities into business outcomes.
  8. Contribute to our service evolution by identifying repeatable patterns, building reusable components, and sharing implementation insights back to Product and Engineering teams.
About you:
  • 6+ years of experience in software engineering with at least 2 years in a customer-facing technical role (consulting, solutions architecture, forward deployed engineering, or technical founder experience).
  • Experience using AI instrumentation such as harnesses, skills, and MCPs ****to build and deploy web applications, backend systems, and/or agentic workflows.
  • 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 create a plan and drive a project.
  • 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 occasionally to customer sites for embedded work and relationship building.

Next.js-focused Candidates:
  • Expert-level TypeScript skills - You are fluent in TypeScript 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), and incremental static regeneration (ISR), and personalization.
  • Demonstrated experience leading frontend migrations - you've converted 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.

AI-focused Candidates:
  • Production experience with LLMs and AI applications, including agent development, cloud sandbox & filesystem agent patterns, human-in-the-loop patterns, and value optimization. Familiarity with Vercel's eve framework and AI SDK is strongly preferred.
  • Ability to identify business cases for AI agents - many customers need guidance not only on how to build AI agents, but where and why to use AI. You'll need to listen and understand a day-in-the-life of customers' teams to build proposals.
Bonus if you:
  • Have led enterprise AI transformation initiatives, including building production agents that automated manual processes or replaced legacy systems.
  • Have taught others how to develop software using AI, best practices for building agents, harnesses, skills, and MCPs.
  • 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 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.

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