Today was my last day at Yahoo. I decided to resign after 15 years.
In 2007, one year before joining Yahoo, I was living in Southern Illinois and just graduated high school. I was working for a local company making websites for K-12 schools.
My former boss there, Dav Glass, recently moved to California for a job at Yahoo. I visited Yahoo’s campus in Sunnyvale that summer. The energy and excitement there marked me.
One year later, when I was 19 years old, Dav invited me to apply for a job. Soon I found myself opening a yodeling purple box with a full time job offer to build apps for the web. I dropped out of university and moved across the country.
Joining Yahoo in 2008 was a very special time. Hack Days in Sunnyvale and NYC. Working alongside smart folks who have shaped our entire industry. Nonstop learning.
Over the years I was a YUI Library core contributor, learned how to help other developers, built developer tools, and most recently I helped build Yahoo Mail.
The last 6 months have been an incredible time. I led a team of 7 engineers responsible for our React framework. Together we made iteration speed as fast as possible. Everything was made faster without a big rewrite — faster dev startup, faster React Fast Refresh, faster PR builds, faster clock speed. A lot of new code was written with modern dependencies. We built tests for UI outcomes instead of implementation details. And we removed tech debt in the existing product too. It was very ambitious and I am proud of the team I am leaving behind. I wish them all the best.
I will have more to share on my upcoming plans in the next few weeks.
Yahoo changed my life. California is now my home. The time has come to move on, but I will always be thankful for all the Yahoos who helped me become the engineer I am today.