I Joined Vercel
It's been 3 weeks since I joined Vercel as a Developer Success Engineer. If you need to skip this entire blog and take one thing from it, it's been such an amazing experience so far. Vercel is amazing.
The Beginnings
I knew Vercel a long, long time ago. I have been a user and a customer before joining the team. My very first introduction was, of course, through Next.js. When I started learning React a long time ago, coming from PHP and pure HTML, it was great. The separation was great. When I came across Next.js, I was excited because it really simplified my life. I remember it was the Pages Router that I got used to. One hot selling point for me was that I could just connect my repository, and Vercel would handle all deployments and previews. I have always loved backend engineering because I consider myself not visually creative, or at least I was not; now I am better. So having a framework that made it so easy for me to write something good was a game-changer, so I jumped on it. If my memory serves me right, this was sometime in 2019-2020, during COVID, when I was building Elior Health.
The Initial Approach
Since 2022, I was a Senior Software Engineer at commercetools. I enjoyed my time and learned a lot there. I am glad to have met some incredible people. One thing was for sure, though: it was time for me to start thinking about leaving and finding the next challenge in my career. Even though I wasn't actively looking, I was open to opportunities.
My LinkedIn DMs are full of messages from recruiters. Sometimes I just ignore them. One day, I got a message from a Vercel recruiter. We traded a few messages and got on a call. I am usually a person who tries to downplay a lot of things. I don't know why. When I got off the call, I told my wife I had just talked to a recruiter at Vercel, and that it's such a good company I have followed and known for a long time.
Series of Interviews
After the initial screening, I was put through a series of interviews where I met a lot of people and discussed technical topics, presentations, and assessments. This happened between February and April. I was questioned on various topics, and it was such an experience. Anyway, I got to the very end of the interview, and it took time to know if I got in or not.
I remember I was meeting a friend; I had gone to buy train tickets. We were going for Easter meetings at Church when I got an email saying, "Hey Joel, I got news for you regarding your application. Do you have time to meet?" You can already tell the look on my face, lol. I was like, yep, I didn't make it. Why did she say she got news for me? Why not just say congratulations? At this point, I had lots of questions. You can imagine that, when the process starts and a few interviews in, one gets invested and would love to actually get in.
When I got home, I got into the meeting. "Well, the team was overly impressed with your skills and what you managed to demonstrate..." At this point, I am telling myself, "Well, this is it, then." I actually didn't make it, man. But then, "...with that, we would like to offer you the role..." Dang, I got in! What? Will I be joining Vercel? Vercel? That company?? I couldn't believe it. The good news came the day before Good Friday. I went to Kassel a happy man. I was on vacation from commercetools, but I scheduled a meeting to inform my manager that I was leaving.
The Waiting Period
Remember, this was in April and I was starting the job in June. So during this period I had to keep it low. I of course told my wife and best friends about it. They knew from the moment I was interviewing at Vercel. Almost two months of waiting to break the news passed.
The excitement kinda died down, but then the 8th of June came. It was on this day that I knew what had happened was even bigger than I had thought and downplayed. When I shared the news on LinkedIn and X, I got numerous congratulatory messages. It's such a big move for me. It represents something huge.
First All Hands
One of the best days of my life was 9th June, 2026. I was in a meeting with the CEO, COO, CTO, and other incredible folks from Vercel. Mind you, I have followed these people on X for so long. And now, I was on the call with them. Watching them talk and present. I couldn't believe it. It was like I had met the heroes I had followed throughout my career. I tweeted about it. Man, it was surreal. Not only was I in the meeting with them, but I was also going to be working with them. I could meet them in real life at some point. So unbelievable.
First 3 Weeks
As of today, June 29th, it's been 3 weeks, and this is my fourth. One thing that has amazed me about Vercel is the incredible tech, people, and mentality. Remember my ship mentality? It's what is preached here. I love it here. I will share more on this, but damn, it's so, so good to be a Vercelian! I have never been at a company that just makes you want to level up like Vercel. I believe that this is the place where the best of me will come out.
Context For Non-Malawians
I know some of you reading this may not be Malawians, but this move is huge for me. It is inspiring that Malawian engineers can also do it on the big stage. It represents something that we can learn from as a country. Check my tweet, and you will understand how big this is.
Personally, this is what I have dreamed of: being one of those people who can create impact on the biggest stage in tech. I hope one day we can all look back and the world remembers my name. Above all, I thank God for this opportunity.