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Hey! Thanks for the AMA. What made you all join Netlify? I understand that Netlify is simple to use and just works. But what was that thing which resonated strongly when you were looking to join them?
Hi! Honestly I never thought myself qualified to join Netlify, I thought I needed to know how a CDN works to join. Turns out an empathy for users (I was already one) is more important for this job and that is how they found me! Also the ability to work remotely and work my speaking and writing (which I was already doing in my free time) into the day job.
btw after i joined i also spent some time learning how a CDN works
Hi! Around 2015/2016, I started getting into static site generators as a simpler alternative to WordPress and other dynamic CMS setups I had used for clients and civic projects.
In late 2016, I joined the local JAMstack meetup in SF, and met several members of the team there. As we talked about the benefits of SSGs, I mentioned how I wished there was a viable open source CMS (that was more functional than Prose). They responded, "We're making one!"
We kept talking over the next couple months, and I did a trial contract writing some of the first docs for Netlify CMS. I joined in Feb 2017, and it's been great ever since! Netlify CMS is what drew me in - such a lightweight, flexible solution for managing SSG content! But also that Netlify is a great fit for my experience and passions, and the team is wonderful.
I just joined 3 weeks ago! What really excited me about Netlify was working on a product that I absolutely loved. I know that sounds like a sales pitch, but it's just the truth. Every time I worked with Netlify I found something else I liked about it. I thought that the people who worked there must be pretty smart and care about developer experience- something I'm really passionate about- to make this, and I was right :)
It also helped a lot that when I started talking to people at the company, I saw that they had a really great culture. I knew a few great folks here like Phil Hawksworth, Divya Sasidharan, and swyx and liked them all a lot- fortunate enough for me, they're all on my team so I get to talk to them more frequently now!
Matt and Chris, the founders, also did a lot of due diligence when we started talking about me joining in setting me up for success.
All in all, I would say it was half and half: the product was awesome, and the people were awesome. Oh, and I like remote work! So that was a must-have in a company.
For me, it was a perfect fit. I'd been working at an agency and working with some pretty complex and restrictive infrastructure stacks with very large clients, and had become increasingly convinced that hosting sites statically could be a real advantage. After 2 or 3 years of talking about that at conferences, I found myself mentioning Bitballon (which would later become Netlify), amongst other services, a lot.
As Netlify grew, the number of tools and the apparent elegance and power of the platform really made it invaluable for me, and I also got to know the team. I became a fan of the product, and of the people.
In the end, it became really clear to me that I was really well aligned with the vision and mission of the Netlify team. And the clincher for me was in discovering what a healthy and diverse culture Netlify seemed to have built and valued. It made it a very desirable company to want to join and I feel rather lucky to have been given the opportunity to turm my passion into my day job.