Farewell, Netlify
Tags: reflections
Published: 2020-03-20 21:34:22

---
title: Farewell, Netlify
published: true
description: On leaving Netlify
tags: Reflections
slug: farewell-netlify
displayed_publish_date: "2020-03-19"
canonical_url: https://www.swyx.io/writing/farewell-netlify
---

Today is my last day at Netlify. It is a bittersweet moment, but the end of a formative period of my career that I will always be grateful for.

Netlify is the first job I ever got through [Learning in Public](https://www.swyx.io/writing/learn-in-public). I remember that day well. In fact the whole concept was [less than a week old](https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1009174159690264579?lang=en) to me when [Matt Biilmann](https://twitter.com/biilmann) reached out. He bet *early* on me - super early. I guess that's what founders do? I had yet to give [my first conference talk](https://www.swyx.io/speaking/react-not-reactive/), and I had less than a year of experience as a card carrying web developer (although I had coded as part of my job in my finance career). I had never done developer relations professionally. I had no track record of working remotely - and yet the entire interview process was remote, and the first time I physically met any coworkers was after I had joined the company. A lot of firsts. Everyone who interviewed me took a leap of faith that I could do the job, and I am equally impressed at that as I am thankful.

Netlify is the first high growth startup I've been a part of, from [Series B to C](https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1235246651553517568). At none of my previous jobs have I counted growth in X's instead of percentages, and it strikes me that this is actually pretty rare outside of my VC-fueled bubble. I think Netlify users are vaguely aware it is growing, but it must seem smooth from the outside. I think it's a little like a duck swimming - the visible part is gliding serenely above water, and underneath is some rather ungainly paddling.

A lot of companies aspire to category creation, but Netlify actually *did it*. In the past two years [JAMstack](http://jamstack.org/) went from a sorta kinda weird niche term to something *other* companies have adopted, to the point of copying everything from talking points to app design to literal marketing copy. The flattery is sincere. Meanwhile Netlify went from 1 conference in our first year to 3 the next. [Books](https://www.netlify.com/oreilly-jamstack/). [Workshops](https://frontendmasters.com/workshops/jamstack/). [FreeCodeCamp courses](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_l0qrPUJds). [Entire](https://www.netlify.com/blog/2019/12/16/introducing-scully-the-angular-static-site-generator/) [frameworks](https://redwoodjs.com/). More I can't think of right now. It warms the cold dead heart of natural cynics like me. It didn't Just Happen, it was the result of a tremendous amount of hard work by the people in Netlify (and allies outside). Too many to name here for fear of leaving someone important out. But I will carry what they taught me everywhere I go.

Some people diss JAMstack as frontend developers trying to be full-stack. I get what they mean, but also there's a very real way it is not a diss. JAMstack related technologies and services reduce (not eliminate) a lot of steps that stand in the way of frontend developers getting fast and secure sites out into the world, for less. For those who still don't quite get it, [Chris Coyier describes it best in this talk](http://full-stack.netlify.com/) - all else is tiresome debates over semantics. For customers, I have joked in the past that Netlify is a secret hack around nonproductive and nonexistent platform teams ([Reverse Conway's Law](https://twitter.com/conways_law/status/1241037003552182279)) - for product engineers and [indie hackers](https://www.indiehackers.com/article/jamstack-for-indie-hackers-b07f7a943d) alike. For me the diss is true in a more literal sense - I went from 100% frontend product engineer to being able to run workshops on [serverless tech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoqWF9BKtOE) and [CLIs](https://egghead.io/courses/build-custom-cli-tooling-with-oclif-and-typescript), and having informed opinions about adjacent spaces. This job is a Mario Mushroom for hungry people who learn in public.

Above all, I think, Netlify is a great group of people. Netlify showed me how you can hire extremely competent people who are also *nice*. Nice, diverse, inclusive, funny, self aware, humble, transparent, I could go on. Of course there doesn't have to be a tradeoff between being nice and being a great developer. But it's good to have proof.

> See also: [Netlify Year One](https://www.swyx.io/writing/netlify-year-one/)