5 things I learned from 5 years at Vercel
july 2025 – lee robinson
After five years at Vercel, I just finished my last week. What a ride!
When I joined in 2020, we were 30 people and had crossed $1M ARR. Today, Vercel is 650 people and over $200M ARR. During that time, I went from IC to VP and worked on DevRel, product, community, docs, and more.
Here are some of the lessons I learned and how I grew as a leader and manager, as well as a bunch of behind-the-scenes photos.
Next.js Conf 2024 Vercel team dinner Japan community meetup Stanford hackathon Lydia/Delba keynote
1. Go hard at work, then go home
I responded to a Next.js tweet while sitting on the beach during my honeymoon.
That probably sounds insane. Actually yeah, it is.
Vercel was the first startup I worked at. Before Vercel, I would leave work and turn that part of my brain off. But ironically, because of my passion for building things, I would spend my nights and weekends writing code, reading forums, and learning about the latest tools.
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