Director, Product Counseling

About Vercel:

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:

Vercel is hiring a Director of Product Counseling to lead a team and partner closely with Engineering, Product, Design and Security teams to provide all aspects of legal support throughout the product development lifecycle.

You will report to Vercel’s VP of Legal. This role is based in SF where we have a 3 day/week in-office requirement.

What you will do:

• Lead Vercel’s product counseling function as a “player coach,” managing a team of product counsel while serving as the legal lead for certain product areas as we continue to build out the team


• Serve as the primary strategic partner to Engineering, Product, and Design leaders, and work closely with Security, GTM, and other cross-functional teams


• Build scalable processes that enable Vercel to ship faster and smarter over time, in partnership with the leader of Product Foundations (which includes privacy and regulatory matters, among other legal functions), and Legal Operations


• Reimagine what product counseling looks like and the impact it can have by integrating agents and other AI tools into core workflows

About You:

• Admitted to the California Bar or eligible for Registered In-House Counsel exception and in good standing


• 12+ years of legal experience, including 6+ years of in-house product legal experience at a software company


• 3+ years of experience managing, hiring, and developing legal professionals, with a track record of building and retaining high-performing teams


• Strong understanding of AI, cloud services, and general SaaS, PaaS, IaaS business practices and relevant global regulatory requirements, with a willingness to dig deep into Vercel's growing and evolving product offerings


• Experience building new, scalable processes to support organizations through hyper-growth, particularly using AI tools


• Deep technical literacy. Comfortable mapping technical architectures, data flows, and controls into legal risk frameworks. Excited to dig deep to understand Vercel’s evolving product suite


• Strong judgment; able to make sound decisions under time pressure and with imperfect information


• Exceptional communication and advocacy skills, particularly when collaborating with engineering and product leaders


• Demonstrated ability to thrive in fast-paced environments undergoing a dramatic level of organization-wide growth and change

Bonus If You Have:

• Used Vercel's products and services


• Experience managing distributed or remote legal teams


• Background in intellectual property or open source software


• Experience with AI/ML product development and related regulatory considerations

The San Francisco, CA base pay range for this role is $310,000-$340,000. 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.