emil kowalski ui animating in public

--- source: https://emilkowal.ski/ui/animating-in-public author: Emil Kowalski captured: 2026-05-23T12:03:16-07:00 tags: - ai-research - ui - design - curl-md --- --- title: Animating in Public description: On the importance of sharing your work. url: https://emilkowal.ski/ui/animating-in-public site: Emil Kowalski --- # 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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxR5I5_hOKk\&ab_channel=leerob) and lots of other videos. I even built a few projects. ! [ui-snippets.dev](https://ui-snippets.dev/) was my first project that I shared publicly. ! [ui-snippets.dev](https://ui-snippets.dev/) was my first project that I shared publicly. 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... *** 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](https://x.com/jrdngonen) from [Compound](https://compoundplanning.com/).   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](https://x.com/emilkowalski/status/1498659355377344514) or Compound’s design system (that’s [how the idea for Sonner was initially born](https://x.com/emilkowalski/status/1503372086038962178)). 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](https://nextjs.org/learn), [Geist](https://x.com/emilkowalski/status/1765843412370997413), the [Vercel dashboard](https://x.com/emilkowalski/status/1682380276343660545), or even a [fun hackathon project](https://x.com/emilkowalski/status/1727086734167445906). I also gained more confidence in my skills, enough to build two open-source components: [Sonner](https://sonner.emilkowal.ski/) and [Vaul](https://vaul.emilkowal.ski/). *** 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](https://animations.dev/). 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 Thanks to [Julian](https://x.com/julianlehr) for feedback on this post. --- Powered by [curl.md](https://curl.md)