Headcount planning and management
Workforce planning and management
Budgeting and forecasting

How Vercel ended the “where did my headcount go” fire drill with TeamOhana

30+ hours
a month of reconciliation cut roughly in half across Finance, HR, and Talent
2-3 days
average time to approve headcount, down from 2 weeks
Overview
Vercel is the platform where the world's best frontend teams build, deploy, and scale AI-powered web products. It is the team behind Next.js, v0, and the AI SDK, and it is trusted by companies like OpenAI, PayPal, and Ramp. Over roughly two years, Vercel grew from about 500 employees to nearly 750 while going through frequent reorgs. Amanda Tarkenton sits on the Recruiting Operations team and owned the weekly headcount audit that Finance, HR, and hiring managers all depended on. At 500 people, that job had become untenable. Even after consolidating spreadsheets into one master sheet, the number was never real-time, and three functions still argued over whose count was right. The moment Vercel decided it needed a system, not another spreadsheet, is where this story starts.
Challenges
Daily “where did my headcount go” Slack pings, with recruiting ops stuck mediating between teams.
Finance, recruiting, and hiring managers each carried a different number, so no one trusted one source of truth.
Manual weekly audits where a single mismatched figure could open hours of reconciliation.
Headcount data split across BambooHR, Greenhouse, and spreadsheets, with no live connection between them.
01
The challenge
02
Our solution
03
Key workflows
04
Impact and results

At around 500 full-time employees, the old way stopped holding. Vercel had already consolidated its tracking into one master spreadsheet, but the data was never real-time, everything ran on manual entry, and not everyone could see what headcount was actually approved. The reorgs only widened the gaps.

“The breaking point was the constant Slack pings trying to figure out where someone's headcount went. Everyone had a different number. Finance had one, recruiting had another, and hiring managers had their own. No one was working from the same source of truth, and I was the one constantly mediating.” — Amanda Tarkenton, Recruiting Operations, Vercel

The cost showed up in Amanda's calendar. Every Monday started with hours of pulling data out of the HRIS and ATS, reconciling new hires and terminations, then producing a manual audit for leadership that captured every change from the prior week.

“Across Finance, HR, and hiring managers, we were burning about 30 hours a month just on headcount reconciliation. Time that we would be spending on actual work and strategic decisions.” — Amanda Tarkenton, Recruiting Operations, Vercel

That 30 hours broke down to roughly 9 for Finance, 15 for HR and recruiting, and another 5 for hiring managers. To answer a single headcount question, someone had to touch three systems and still could not be fully confident the answer was right.

Our solution

Vercel evaluated tools that leaned too far in one direction. Some were built for recruiting, others for Finance, and neither served the joint motion that headcount decisions actually require. TeamOhana connected both sides.

“The other tools we looked at were leaning more heavily on the recruiting side, or the opposite, leaning more heavily on the finance side. And TeamOhana met halfway.” — Amanda Tarkenton, Recruiting Operations, Vercel

Instead of another place to report numbers, Vercel put TeamOhana at the point where headcount decisions get made and approved. It sits on top of BambooHR and Greenhouse, keeps one governed number that every function trusts, and routes every backfill and new role through a real approval flow. The before was three disconnected systems and a spreadsheet. The after is a single source of truth that Finance, HR, and Talent all work from at the same time.

Key workflows

Headcount approval flows

Every request to open or change a role now runs through a defined approval path in TeamOhana, with far more people able to see what is already in the system. The Slack scavenger hunt is gone.

“It used to take two weeks on average to hunt down an approval on headcount. Now, because we have approval flows and a lot more folks have visibility into what is in the system, it takes about 2 to 3 days.” — Amanda Tarkenton, Recruiting Operations, Vercel

Deliberate backfill decisions

When a role opens, TeamOhana surfaces the choice in real time: backfill it one-to-one, repurpose it, or do not backfill at all. That decision used to happen off to the side, if it was made at all.

“Before, those decisions happened informally and inconsistently, and sometimes the decision would never make it to me. Now it's structured and visible, which means we're making more deliberate choices about where we actually spend headcount budget.” — Amanda Tarkenton, Recruiting Operations, Vercel

Structured planning with required fields

Because levels, locations, and comp ranges are required fields in TeamOhana scenarios, leaders can no longer bring half-formed asks to the table. Planning gets rigorous by default.

“We used to not consistently gather levels, locations, and comp ranges up front. Because those are required fields in TeamOhana scenarios, it's forced a more rigorous planning motion. Leaders now come to the table with that context baked in.” — Amanda Tarkenton, Recruiting Operations, Vercel

Real-time visibility for hiring managers and recruiters

Hiring managers see their own headcount live and can submit a backfill or a change request in under two minutes. Recruiters are notified the moment a role is assigned to them, so no one sits in limbo waiting to hear what was approved.

Two-way sync with the ATS

Custom fields built in TeamOhana flow straight into Greenhouse and feed Vercel's reporting. The clean handoff between the two systems tightened data hygiene across the board.

Impact & results

  • Reconciliation work, once 30+ hours a month across Finance, HR, and Talent, was cut roughly in half.
  • The recurring reconciliation meetings, the “here's my number, here's yours, why don't they match” conversations, stopped happening.
  • Backfill spend became a deliberate choice, with every role decision structured and visible instead of decided off to the side.
  • Headcount approvals dropped from two weeks on average to 2 to 3 days.
  • Hiring managers submit backfills or change requests in under two minutes with live headcount visibility.
  • Recruiters are notified instantly when a role is assigned, so reqs kick off without delay.
  • With reconciliation off their plate, Finance, HR, and recruiting redirected that time to workforce planning and strategic work.
  • Vercel scaled from about 500 to nearly 750 employees on a single trusted source of truth.

The teams feel the change most in what no longer lands in their inbox.

“Our exec team is happy they're not being pinged every day asking where somebody's headcount went.” — Amanda Tarkenton, Recruiting Operations, Vercel
“You'll be happy that you have a tool that's able to be your one source of truth and audit trail when it comes to headcount.” — Amanda Tarkenton, Recruiting Operations, Vercel

Looking ahead

The time Vercel got back is going straight into its next bet. As a Slack-first, developer-first company, the team is investing in APIs and MCP integrations so the answer to a headcount question comes to you, wherever you already work.

“Imagine a world where a recruiter types in, how many open heads do I have under this manager, and gets the answer right in front of them, instead of exiting one app and pulling into another to find it. Tools like TeamOhana are part of what makes it possible for us to look into that.” — Amanda Tarkenton, Recruiting Operations, Vercel

That future runs on clean, real-time, governed data that can surface anywhere. It is the same foundation that ended the reconciliation fire drills, now pointed forward.

30+ hours
a month of reconciliation cut roughly in half across Finance, HR, and Talent
2-3 days
average time to approve headcount, down from 2 weeks

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