Forward-Deployed Engineer, API

Forward-Deployed Engineer, API - Vector

Location: Boston, MA (Hybrid) · Stage: Seed → Series A · Reports to: Head of Engineering

About Vector

Vector is a contact-level advertising platform built for B2B demand generation teams who are tired of paying LinkedIn to show ads to people who will never buy from them.

We let marketers build ad audiences from real, verified contacts - people actively visiting their site, engaging with their brand, or researching competitors right now. Then we sync those audiences directly to LinkedIn, Meta, Google, Reddit, and more. The result: less spend on noise, more spend on actual buyers.

We went through Y Combinator, we're backed by serious investors, and we're preparing for a Series A. The core platform has product-market fit. Now we need someone to own what comes next.

The Opportunity

Vector's API product exists - and it's working. Customers are integrating with it. Revenue is coming in. But right now it's being supported off the side of three people's desks, none of whom can give it the attention it deserves.

This is the hire that changes that.

You'll be the first person fully dedicated to our API product - owning everything from the technical onboarding experience to the SDK and documentation to scoping new integrations with prospects. You're not joining a team. You're building the foundation for one.

This role sits at the intersection of engineering, product, and go-to-market. Some days you'll be writing code. Other days you'll be on a call walking a customer's engineering team through an integration. Other days you'll be shaping the roadmap based on what you're hearing in the field. If you need a clean swim lane to be productive, this isn't for you. If you like owning something end-to-end and making it real, keep reading.

What You'll Own

API product ownership You'll be the internal owner of the API product - its roadmap, its reliability, and its trajectory. You'll work closely with engineering and leadership to prioritize what gets built, and you'll have the technical chops to build some of it yourself. This isn't a PM role where you write tickets and wait. You ship.

Technical onboarding and integration support When a customer is integrating with our API, you're the person making sure it goes well. You'll guide their engineering teams through implementation, troubleshoot issues, and build the tooling and processes that make onboarding repeatable - not a fire drill every time.

Developer enablement Our docs, SDKs, and developer experience need an owner. You'll build and maintain the resources that let customers self-serve where possible and get unstuck fast when they can't. If you've ever been frustrated by bad API documentation, this is your chance to build what you wished existed.

Pre-sales technical scoping You'll join sales conversations when there's a technical integration to scope - understanding the prospect's stack, defining what the integration looks like, and giving the team an honest read on complexity and feasibility. You're not carrying a quota, but your ability to translate between business value and technical implementation will directly influence revenue.

Feedback loop to product and engineering You'll be closer to API customers than anyone in the company. That means you're the one surfacing patterns - what's breaking, what's missing, what would unlock the next wave of adoption. You'll turn field signal into product direction.

Who We're Looking For

You can code and you can communicate. This role requires both. You're comfortable writing production-quality code, and you're equally comfortable explaining a technical concept to a non-technical stakeholder or hopping on a call with a customer's senior engineer. People who are strong at one but not the other won't thrive here.

You've worked on developer-facing products. You understand what makes a good API, a good SDK, and a good developer experience. You've either built these things or been close enough to have strong opinions about how they should work.

You've operated in ambiguity. This product doesn't have a playbook yet. You're the person who writes it. You've worked at a startup or in an environment where you had to figure out the right thing to do - not just execute against a spec someone handed you.

You're technical enough to be dangerous across the stack. You don't need to be a specialist in any one area, but you should be able to read and write code across backend systems, work with APIs and data pipelines, and debug an integration without waiting for someone else to do it.

You default to ownership. When something is broken or unclear, your instinct is to fix it or figure it out - not to flag it and move on. You treat the API product like it's yours, because it is.

Minimum experience: 3+ years in a technical role with meaningful customer-facing or product-facing exposure - solutions engineering, developer relations, forward-deployed engineering, technical account management, or a software engineering role where you were regularly in front of customers. Bonus if you've done this at an early-stage company.

Bonus Points

• Experience with ad tech, martech, or B2B marketing platforms - you understand the ecosystem we're operating in
• Familiarity with identity resolution, audience targeting, or data integration workflows
• Experience building or maintaining SDKs, developer documentation, or API reference sites
• Background working with TypeScript/Node.js, AWS, or data pipeline tooling
• You've worked at a YC company or similar high-velocity early-stage environment
• You've been the first hire in a function and know what it means to build from zero

What We Offer

• Competitive base + meaningful equity - you're joining at a stage where the upside is real
• Full benefits
• A seat at the table - you'll be in the room when product and GTM decisions get made, not hearing about them afterward
• The chance to own something. Not support something. Not maintain something. Own it.

A Note on Culture

We move fast and we expect a lot from each other. We're also honest about where we are - seed stage, building, figuring things out. The people who thrive here are comfortable with ambiguity, allergic to theater, and get satisfaction from watching a customer successfully integrate something they built.

If you want a role where the boundaries are clearly drawn and someone else decides what's important, this probably isn't it. If you want to be the reason an entire product line works, keep reading.

Vector is an equal opportunity employer. We don't care where you went to school. We care what you've done and how you think.

Your job in this process is to vet us as much as we are vetting you. This role is not for everyone - and that's the point.

• Introductory conversation with Andrew (Head of Engineering) - discuss Vector, the API product, and what you're looking for

• Engineering practical with a Vector engineer - work through a real-world problem we've actually solved at Vector. No whiteboard trivia, just a window into how you think through technical challenges.

• Cross-functional interviews with Sales and the CEO