Work Somewhere Great: Why I Joined Figma Engineering
I’ve been meaning to write this post for the past year and a half. It’s taken this long in part due to 2020 but also because I wanted to wait until the rose-tinted glasses of starting at a new job faded to a more objective hue. Though company fit is personal, I want to share why I joined Figma, hoping it will resonate with some readers and help them make their own decisions.
Build a great product
Some companies are successful because of their product, and others are successful despite their products. I was definitely looking for the former.
In the past, you would hear people criticize browser-based applications by cheekily asking: What about Photoshop? No one could imagine an application as complex and resource-intensive as Photoshop running well on a browser. And then ta-da! Figma happened.
As I learned more about Figma through the interview process, it became clear that the company was obsessed with building a great product. They thought deeply about the user’s problems and came up with elegant solutions. They weren’t afraid to sweat the details and pushed the boundaries of performance.
The results speak for themselves. It’s unreal how many designer friends told me how much they liked the product and how I “just had to go work at Figma.” I can’t think of any other widely used tool that still retains such a high level of fandom.
However, building a great product isn’t enough. I was also looking for one…
… that’s differentiated on its technology
I’ve been in countless conversations with engineers who loved their team and the product they were building. Overall, they were happy with their work situation except for a deal-breaker: there was no growth opportunity.
Many of these engineers switched to platform teams because product engineering work can often be repetitive and shallow. Many products are at their heart CRUD applications, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Still, it can leave ambitious developers frustrated that their impact doesn’t translate into personal growth.
I believe that the most effective way to minimize this phenomenon is to work on technical products. These products are differentiated on their technical implementation, and therefore more of the product development involves overcoming technical challenges.
Even though Figma (the company) builds design tools, both founders were developers, and that is no accident. The two most recognizable things about the Figma editor are that it supports concurrent editing and runs in the browser, and these are both technical challenges. Figma engineering frequently tackles complex problems around graphics, browser performance, event synchronization, and data format. It makes for a non-boring engineering blog.
Personally, I’ve gotten the opportunity to help optimize React to 60fps and build branching & merging for design files from scratch.
Figma’s trajectory reminds me of the Innovator’s Dilemma by Clay Christensen:
Disruptive technologies bring to a market a very different value proposition than had been available previously. Generally, disruptive technologies underperform established products in mainstream markets. But they have other features that a few fringe (and generally new) customers value. Products based on disruptive technologies are typically cheaper, simpler, smaller, and, frequently, more convenient to use.
Though initially, a browser-based design editor underperformed compared to native solutions, its innovative technical approach meant that it was lighter-weight, more accessible, and easier to use. It could also support collaboration flows that were virtually impossible to do for a native application. As Figma started to get more and more parity to the incumbents in functionality and performance, it became the tool of choice for even the power users at the largest tech companies. This is how Figma disrupted the design tool space so completely.
However, there was one more thing I was looking for in addition to building a great product that was technically differentiated. That is to build it…
… with great people
Much has been said about how impactful our work environment is on our own personal satisfaction. We often spend more hours talking with our coworkers than we do with some of our closest friends. So it’s crucial to find a great group of people who inspire you and spark joy.
More specifically, I’ve found that some of the best engineering teams with the brightest people trend towards cynicism. Engineers are by nature skeptics, and engineering orgs can inadvertently foster a culture that is quick to criticize new ideas. This ultimately leads to an unsafe work environment where people gossip behind each other’s back and question abilities, motives, and intentions.
Figma has a distinctively warm culture that is biased towards support and empathy. It’s vibrant and energetic and sometimes a little quirky, and it brings together a diverse set of people of all backgrounds and interests. It does it all while maintaining a fiercely competitive spirit and incredible execution.
In Conclusion
Build a great product… that’s differentiated on its technology…with great people.
