Software Engineer, Connect
About The Position
Vercel Connect helps developers give agents and AI-built apps secure access to data, tools, and events through a platform for managing agent identity, access, and permissions, as well as connectors to thousands of third-party systems. The team is addressing challenges including agent identity, delegated access, tool approval, and standards for keeping agents aware of changes on third-party platforms. As a senior engineer on the Connect team, you will own APIs, token infrastructure, authorization, SDKs, and related platform capabilities. You will also work with external companies to make it easier for developers to build agents that integrate with their products, balancing uptime, performance, and security with the flexibility required to connect systems that were not designed for agents.
Requirements
- At least 6 years building and operating production backend or full-stack systems, with experience owning a service or platform surface.
- Strong understanding of users' problems and the ability to address them in a focused way while continually improving the product.
- Deep practical understanding of OAuth 2.0/2.1, OIDC, and JWTs, including authorization codes, PKCE, refresh semantics, audience and scope restrictions, and token exchange.
- Security experience or instincts relevant to integration code, including SSRF and DNS rebinding, confused-deputy and mix-up attacks, redirect-URI validation, webhook signature verification, and tenant isolation.
- Strong TypeScript skills and comfort developing backend and frontend components.
- Experience integrating with many third-party APIs and judgment to handle undocumented behavior, non-compliant OAuth, and inconsistent errors behind clean abstractions.
- Comfort with ambiguity, incremental delivery across a large surface area, and clear communication with teams building on the platform.
- Uses agents and AI in their development workflow and can apply that experience to building an agent platform.
Nice To Haves
- Experience building or operating an OAuth authorization server, identity provider, or multi-tenant integrations platform.
- Experience with MCP, agent tool-calling, or delegated-access and consent patterns.
- Prior work on integration marketplaces, partner engineering, or webhook infrastructure at scale.
- Open-source contributions, particularly in authentication, Next.js, or agent tooling ecosystems.
Responsibilities
- Ship provider integrations end to end, including authentication flows, token exchange, app registration, and configuration UI, from generic API-key and OAuth presets to bespoke integrations.
- Own and improve Connect infrastructure, including uptime, performance, secure storage of credentials and keys, and developer experience.
- Work with industry leaders inside and outside Vercel to propose and implement authentication and authorization protocols for the AI era.
- Build and harden event forwarding, including inbound signature verification and outbound project-scoped identity, delivering events to the correct deployment and environment.
- Extend SDKs, consent-redirect flows, and framework adapters to make Connect an easy way to give agents credentials.
- Reduce the cost of adding integrations so that most new providers can be supported through configuration rather than code.
- Work directly with teams building on Connect and use their feedback to improve the platform.
Benefits
- Competitive compensation package, including equity.
- Inclusive healthcare package.
- Mentorship and events to help build professional networks and skills.
- Flexible time off.
- Equipment needed for the role.
- Work-from-home budget.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
