Joel is joining Califa

Today, I’m excited to share that Joel is joining Califa.

When I started out, the tools were Photoshop 5.5, table-based layouts and Internet Explorer 5. I wanted to make things on the internet that worked a little better and felt a little nicer. More than 20 years later, that’s still the mission: solve real problems, sweat the tiny details, and leave people a bit happier than I found them.

Along the way, I’ve helped teams at DigitalOcean, GitHub, Heap and Unify ship work used by millions of people. At GitHub alone, that meant improving pull requests for more than 180 million developers. Through it all, I’ve been lucky to work with founders, designers and engineers who trusted me with their hardest, most ambiguous problems. I don’t take that lightly.

Why Califa

I’ve known the Califa team for a long time. In many ways, we grew up together. From day one, they’ve believed what I believe: design leadership shouldn’t be a lucky hire. It should be something every startup building technical tooling can count on.

When we started talking about joining forces, it was obvious we shared the same DNA. Califa brings the platform, the reach, and the operational rigour. Joel brings the product. Together, we can bring design leadership to many more teams, and do it faster.

What this means for you

Nothing changes. I’ll keep doing what I do best: building teams, refining strategy, designing products, and writing code where it helps. Same inbox, same attention to the small things. If you’re working with me today, you’ll keep working with me, and you’ll hear from me directly well before anything changes.

Thank you

To everyone who has hired, managed, mentored or put up with me over the years: thank you. To the teams at DigitalOcean, GitHub, Heap and Unify, and to the friends and family who believed in this from the start, I couldn’t have done it without you.

This is a new chapter, and I can’t wait to show you what’s next.

— Joel

October 21, 2026

Update: Sunsetting Joel’s independent services

When I announced that I was joining Califa, I said nothing would change. For a while, that was true. Since then, we’ve learned a lot about how our customers want to work with us, and we’ve made the difficult decision to wind down my independent services and focus fully on Califa.

Here’s what this means for you:

• Starting today, I’m no longer accepting new independent engagements.
• Existing engagements will be honoured through tomorrow.
• After that, all design leadership work moves to Califa and emails will be routed to the Califa team.

We know change is hard, so I want to be clear about why this is a good thing. Everything you valued about working with me is now part of the Califa platform: vision and strategy, hiring through Talent Magnet, product principles, research programs, managed rebrands, and the same obsessive attention to UI craft. Only now it comes with a higher sticker price and golden handcuffs.

Thank you for trusting Joel with your work. We’re just getting started.

— Joel