About this role.
Vercel is hiring a Design Engineer to own both product design and frontend implementation for AI Gateway, a developer platform for connecting applications and agents to AI models. The role spans dashboard, public catalog, CLI, API, and web experiences, with a focus on making complex concepts such as routing, credentials, budgets, observability, and governance understandable. The successful candidate will work closely with customers, a Product Manager, and engineers, while retaining ownership of quality and outcomes after launch. Strong React and TypeScript production experience, visual and interaction design craft, and comfort with developer tools and AI-assisted coding are central to the role. This is a high-impact individual contributor position in a rapidly changing AI infrastructure product area.
Role DNA
A quick view of the complexity, pace, ownership and collaboration implied by the job description.
Job Complexity
5/5Pace & Pressure
5/5Autonomy Level
5/5Communication Load
5/5Salary analysis
Estimated compensation compared with the broader US market for similar roles.
Core skills
Skills and capabilities most closely associated with this opportunity.
Sample interview questions
I would explain the user problem and evidence gathered, describe the alternatives considered and tradeoffs made, clarify the parts of the design and code I owned, and share measurable post-launch results and subsequent improvements.
I would start with research into users' decision points and failure modes, then use progressive disclosure: clear defaults and guided setup for first-time users, with inspectable routing logic, logs, controls, and documentation for advanced users. I would validate the design through usability testing and telemetry on successful first requests and recovery from errors.
I align early with existing component, accessibility, testing, and performance conventions; build reusable patterns rather than isolated screens; and use design review, code review, automated tests, and manual interaction checks to ensure visual and technical quality.
I would present the original hypothesis, the research or behavioral data that challenged it, and the revised decision. I would emphasize how I communicated the change transparently, protected the core user outcome, and measured whether the new approach improved the experience.
I use agents to accelerate exploration, scaffolding, and repetitive implementation work, but I remain accountable for architecture, correctness, accessibility, security, and maintainability. I review generated changes carefully, test critical flows and edge cases, and can explain and debug every change that ships.
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:
AI Gateway gives developers one place to connect applications and agents to hundreds of models with one API key. It handles provider routing and fallbacks, unifies billing and observability, and lets teams manage spend and security controls across production AI workloads.
Designing this well is a systems problem. A developer should be able to choose the right model, make and verify a first request, diagnose a failed request, and configure routing, budgets, credentials, and security controls without losing sight of the application they are trying to build. The right interface might be in the dashboard, on the public model catalog, in the CLI, in an API response, or in code.
You will be the Design Engineer for AI Gateway, owning product design and frontend implementation across those surfaces. You will work with customers, a Product Manager, and engineers to understand the problem, explore solutions, build the production experience, ship it, and learn from what happens after launch.
AI Gateway is live, the model ecosystem changes every week, and the team can move from an observed problem to production quickly. This is a rare chance to use your product judgment, design craft, and code to shape a developer product and ship the experience yourself.
You will be the design owner embedded with a Product Manager and a dedicated engineering team. You will also have the Product Design team around you for critique, collaboration, and support. AI Gateway will be your main product area, with room to pursue design-led improvements across Vercel. You will report to the Design Team.
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. If you’re located beyond that distance, the role is fully remote. For location-specific details, please connect with our recruiting team.
What You Will Do:
- Own product design and frontend implementation for meaningful parts of the journey from discovering a model to making a first successful request and operating AI in production.
- Design and build production experiences across the website, dashboard, CLI, and APIs, choosing the right medium for each problem.
- Make models, providers, credentials, routing, budgets, logs, performance, privacy, and governance understandable, then create patterns that extend across new providers, modalities, and workloads.
- Talk directly with customers and use product data to understand problems, define success, make tradeoffs, and improve what ships.
- Own quality after launch, including visual and interaction craft, accessibility, performance, resilience, instrumentation, and edge cases.
- Use coding agents to explore and implement ideas quickly, while testing, debugging, and taking responsibility for what ships.
About You:
- Your work shows what you personally identified, designed, built, shipped, and learned after launch.
- You build production-quality web applications with React and TypeScript and can contribute confidently in a large, existing codebase.
- You bring strong visual and interaction craft and have made technical or data-rich products understandable without removing the control advanced users need.
- You can move between graphical interfaces, CLI workflows, API behavior, and implementation details, treating accessibility, performance, failure recovery, and instrumentation as part of the design.
- You use customer research and product data to make decisions, communicate your reasoning clearly, challenge ideas constructively, and change direction when the evidence changes.
- You use coding agents in your daily work, but you can explain, test, debug, and take responsibility for the code they help produce.
There is no required path into this role. You may come from product design, frontend engineering, creative development, or a career that does not fit a standard title. We care about the quality of what you have shipped and the judgment behind it.
Bonus If You:
- Have experience with developer tools, infrastructure products, model marketplaces, or observability experiences.
- Have worked with AI models, providers, inference platforms, guardrails, or AI application tooling.
- Have experience with APIs, command-line tools, structured product content, or agent-facing interfaces.
- Have built an application or agent with Vercel’s AI SDK or AI Gateway.
See the work:
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 San Francisco, CA base pay range for this role is $208,000 – $312,000. 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 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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