Sr. Engineering Manager, Platform

Vercel; New York, San Francisco (NY, CA); Hybrid; USD 208,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible Time Off

Competitive compensation package

Mentorship and skill-building events

Home office budget

Job summary

A leading web infrastructure company is looking for a Sr. Engineering Manager for their Platform team in New York, NY. The role involves leading two teams of engineers while managing critical operations and strategic initiatives in a dynamic environment. Candidates should have over 8 years of experience in large-scale systems and at least 3 years in engineering management. Competitive compensation package is offered, supporting flexible time off and professional growth opportunities.

Qualifications

• 3+ years managing engineers, with experience in managing managers considered a plus.
• 8+ years building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Proven ability to translate business goals into technical strategy.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team across Reliability & Resilience and Developer Productivity.
• Own the platform roadmap for development velocity and platform availability.
• Manage key relationships with SaaS vendors supporting the platform.

Skills

Kubernetes production operations

CI/CD systems

leading teams

reliability programs

Job description

Vercel gives developers the tools and cloud infrastructure to build, scale, and secure a faster, more personalized web. As the team behind v0, Next.js, and AI SDK, Vercel helps customers like Ramp, Supreme, PayPal, and Under Armour build for the AI-native web.

Our mission is to enable the world to ship the best products. That starts with creating a place where everyone can do their best work. Whether you're building on our platform, supporting our customers, or shaping our story: You can just ship things.

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.
• Have experience using Vercel platform.
• Competitive compensation package, including equity.
• 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 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.

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