Animating in Public

Back in 2021, when I was just starting my career, I was working at an agency building apps with Vue.js, but I really wanted to work with React.

I had no React experience though, so I started learning it. I watched React2025 and lots of other videos. I even built a few projects.

After practicing for a while, I felt confident and applied to a local React company. I got rejected. It sucked, especially since I didn’t even make it to a coding interview.

I assumed my resume was not strong enough, so I decided to start posting things I built on Twitter. The idea was that I would apply to a company and include my Twitter profile in the application so that people would see that I’m actually really into coding.

But something else happened...

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My first few tweets didn’t get much traction, but then I posted a video where I recreated Vercel’s tab component, and it changed everything.

I suddenly got a lot of messages from people saying that they liked my work and that they wanted to work with me. One of them was Jordan from Compound.

I went through the interview process and landed my first job at a VC-backed startup.

I got to work with React, the framework I wanted to work with. I got better at it and worked on tons of interesting projects like the Command Menu or Compound’s design system (that’s how the idea for Sonner was initially born).

While at Compound, I kept sharing my work. After a while I got a message from Guillermo, the CEO of Vercel.

That led me to join Vercel as a design engineer on the design team in late 2022.

I got to work on lots of great things there like Next.js docs and the new learn experience, Geist, the Vercel dashboard, or even a fun hackathon project.

I also gained more confidence in my skills, enough to build two open-source components: Sonner and Vaul.

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If I didn’t share that Vercel tab component in 2021, you wouldn’t be reading this post.

You probably wouldn’t even know I exist.

I wouldn’t get to work at companies like Compound, Vercel, and Linear.

I wouldn’t have created Sonner and Vaul.

I definitely wouldn’t launch a course.

Sharing my work exposed me to opportunities I would never have had otherwise.

It changed my life.

You should try it too. Maybe it will change yours as well.

• - Emil