Software Engineer, CDN Content
Software Engineer building and optimizing Vercel's global CDN content services for ISR, PPR, and image optimization. Focus on performance, multi-tier caching, safe production rollouts, observability, and on-call in a polyglot stack (Go, Lua, TypeScript). Requires 2+ years backend production experience and HTTP/web fundamentals.
About the job
What You Will Do
- Build and improve the services behind ISR, PPR, and image optimization — working in Go, Lua, and TypeScript across the serving path.
- Execute well-defined projects independently, from implementation through safe rollout (feature flags, shadow modes, progressive deployment) and post-ship validation.
- Monitor and maintain your work in production: build dashboards, add metrics and alerts, and develop ownership of what you ship.
- Contribute to the team's observability and testing surface — the dashboards, logs views, and e2e test suites that keep a high-change system trustworthy.
- Participate in the on-call rotation with support from senior engineers, and contribute to incident follow-ups that make the system more resilient.
- Collaborate with teammates and partner teams (Next.js, CI/CD) through design discussions, code review, and pairing.
About You
- 2+ years of experience building and operating backend services in production.
- Proficiency in at least one of Go, TypeScript/Node.js, or a comparable systems language, and enthusiasm for working across a polyglot stack.
- Solid understanding of HTTP and web fundamentals — caching headers, request/response lifecycle, what a proxy does.
- You write code you're willing to operate: tested, instrumented, and documented.
- Curious about how large-scale systems work, and motivated to dig into unfamiliar code and production data to figure things out.
- A collaborative teammate who communicates clearly, asks good questions, and follows through reliably.
Bonus If You
- Have experience with caching systems (CDNs, Redis/Memcached, application-level caches) at any scale.
- Have AWS experience, particularly S3 or ElastiCache.
- Have used Next.js or another modern web framework and understand rendering modes like SSR/SSG/ISR.
- Have experience with observability tooling (Datadog, Honeycomb, or similar).
- Have experience with Terraform or Kubernetes.
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 $172,000 - $258,000. 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.
Skills
Go, TypeScript, Lua, Http, Caching, Cdn, AWS, S3, Elasticache, Next.js, Datadog, Honeycomb, Terraform, Kubernetes
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