Why I Joined Figma

07 Dec 2025

A few months ago I left my role as CTO of Dylibso. After lots of conversations with dozens of companies, I’ve decided to take a staff engineering role at Figma. I wanted to take a moment to write about why I chose Figma and what may come next.

First, I’ve admired Figma’s engineering culture for a long time. Figma was an early innovator in WebAssembly and extensibility. Both of these bets on Wasm make them spiritually aligned with my work on projects like Extism and Chicory and the beliefs behind them. As I started to interview people at the company, I came to see that it’s packed with Wasm knowledge and many kindred spirits.

I really respect their company culture as well. At its core, the company is building tools for people who breathe new products and experiences into existence. As someone who has always served developers, I’m highly motivated when I’m enabling people to create new things.

Second, I believe Figma is still in its early days as a business and platform. When I joined Datadog, I recognized that they were undervalued and had all the ingredients to win the observability space, and I see Figma as having the same ingredients for its market. I think over my time at Figma, it will continue to evolve as a platform and capture more of the lifecycle of creating digital experiences. And regardless of where we are on the AI S-curve, the value will continue to accrue up the stack to design.

What’s after Figma?

I’d like to be at Figma for as long as I can, but I do have bigger goals, and the decision to join Figma had to fit into that. Ultimately, I want to start another company. This could change as my life changes out from under me, but that’s my current aim. I do see Figma as a good springboard for this. The talent at the company, and exposure to new ideas, feel limitless.