Creative professionals today have more opportunities than ever to showcase their work online.
The caveat is: They have to spend more time than ever taking advantage of those opportunities and managing their online presence.
VSCO, a platform for photographers offering tools, community and exposure, recognized this pain point among users.
“Aspiring and pro photographers shared how fragmented and time-consuming it is to manage their online presence — balancing separate website creation tools with multiple social media platforms and their VSCO profiles,” said VSCO Senior Manager of Software Engineering Yasser Aboudkhil. “For many, this complexity detracted from their focus on creating exceptional work.”
Enter: VSCO Sites, a new offering created by Aboudkhil’s team that enables users to publish a website directly from their VSCO profile, streamlining the amount of updating needed once they have new content to share.
What was the creation of VSCO Sites like? Aboudkhil explained, “We had just a few months to deliver a product that met our high standards for quality and performance. … Given the potential scale of VSCO Sites, we needed to build a distributed system capable of handling high concurrency and delivering low-latency, high-performance experiences.”
Curious to hear more? Built In sat down with Aboudkhil to get a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of VSCO Sites, the cross-functional collaboration that went into this project and what it’s like to work at VSCO.
What is a product your team is excited about?
Our team is incredibly proud of VSCO Sites, a product that empowers creators, especially photographers, by simplifying how they present their work online. VSCO Sites leverages the content users already maintain on their VSCO profiles — such as galleries, blogs and recent posts — and enables them to publish a beautifully designed, customizable website with minimal effort. It’s simple, intuitive and eliminates the need for learning complicated tools or maintaining multiple platforms.
Creators can now keep everything in one place: their VSCO profile becomes their content hub, and their VSCO Site extends it into a personalized, fully functional website. It’s an exciting step for both VSCO and our community, as it provides a seamless way to elevate their online presence while staying true to their creative vision.
Why did VSCO need to build VSCO Sites? What gave rise to it, and what impact will this product launch have?
Our mission is to nurture creativity so creators can make it, aligning deeply with our “creator first” value. The genesis of VSCO Sites lies in direct feedback from our creator community, particularly aspiring and pro photographers. They shared how fragmented and time-consuming it is to manage their online presence, balancing separate website creation tools — like Squarespace, Wix, etc. — with multiple social media platforms and their VSCO profiles. For many, this complexity detracted from their focus on creating exceptional work.
We saw a clear opportunity to innovate and simplify their workflows by consolidating their content into one place. By enabling users to publish a website directly from their VSCO profile, we could centralize their creative presence and eliminate unnecessary friction.
“We saw a clear opportunity to innovate and simplify creators’ workflows by consolidating their content into one place.”
VSCO Sites eliminates the need for additional tools and streamlines the process of showcasing their work and in doing so, not only addresses a major pain point but also elevates our platform as a one-stop solution for creators. For VSCO, this launch strengthens our platform’s value and deepens our connection with creators by offering an integrated, user-friendly solution tailored to their needs.
What role did you play in developing and launching VSCO Sites? What tools or technologies did your team use?
As the engineering manager overseeing VSCO Sites, I had the privilege of leading an exceptional team in bringing this product to life. In addition to setting a clear vision and fostering a culture of high performance within the team, my role involved ensuring the team operated with engineering excellence, adhered to best practices and stayed laser-focused on delivering a high-quality, user-centric product within our ambitious timeline.
Given the potential scale of VSCO Sites, we needed to build a distributed system capable of handling high concurrency and delivering low-latency, high-performance experiences. We architected the solution using Golang, gRPC, Kafka, MongoDB and Kubernetes to support scalability. On the front end, we utilized NextJS leveraging the provided developer experience for rapid iteration, highly optimized performance features and seamless user interfaces. Turborepo and GitHub Actions powered our streamlined continuous integration and continuous deployment pipeline, enabling fast, reliable deployments. These technologies enabled us to achieve fast development cycles while delivering a robust and forward-looking system that supports future expansion.
What obstacles did you encounter along the way? How did you keep team members motivated and aligned throughout the product-development process?
One of the most significant challenges was balancing the need for a modern, scalable architecture with shipping a quality product within a timeline that aligned with our business objectives — all while ensuring we delighted our users by delivering before the holiday season. We had just a few months to deliver a product that met our high standards for quality and performance.
To overcome this, we leaned on our team’s exceptional talent and executional rigor. I’m fortunate to lead a team of highly skilled individuals who also collaborate effectively and solve problems holistically as a cohesive unit. Generally, I’ve found that high-performing teams are motivated by meaningful, high-impact challenges. This project offered exactly that — building a low-latency, distributed system in a compressed timeframe while delivering an optimized, seamless user experience.
“I’ve found that high-performing teams are motivated by meaningful, high-impact challenges. This project offered exactly that.”
We kept the team motivated by emphasizing our shared mission, celebrating key milestones and maintaining open communication. Biweekly team share-outs showcased accomplishments companywide, fostering accountability, ownership and recognition. These practices sustained morale and ensured delivery of a product we’re proud of.
What teams did you collaborate with in order to get this across the finish line? What strategies did you employ to ensure that cross-functional collaboration went smoothly?
Delivering VSCO Sites was a true cross-functional effort, requiring close collaboration with teams including legal, marketing, trust and safety, data, program management, design and product. The scope of this initiative demanded precise coordination to ensure alignment across all stakeholders and workstreams.
At VSCO, in order to ensure we’re collaborating effectively cross-functionally, we follow structured planning practices to align teams and surface dependencies early. For example, we hold quarterly Big Room Planning sessions, where everyone in the company participates, bringing together all cross-functional stakeholders from all of the teams to identify risks, address dependencies and align on timelines before development begins. This collaborative approach helps us tease out hidden requirements and ensures everyone is aligned on timelines well in advance of execution.
During execution, we treated the initiative as one cohesive program, holding daily updates with all relevant teams to resolve blockers quickly and avoid surprises. This disciplined approach ensured that all moving parts stayed synchronized, enabling us to deliver VSCO Sites efficiently and collaboratively.
When you think of other companies in your industry, how does VSCO compare when it comes to how you build and launch new products? What’s different about your workplace?
VSCO distinguishes itself in how we balance speed and adaptability with thoughtful, strategic planning. While startups often emphasize moving quickly, we complement agility with structured pre-planning practices that ensure we’re solving the right problems and delivering meaningful outcomes for our users.
Key Practices for VSCO Engineers
Epic Workshops: “Epic Workshops bring the broader leadership team together to brainstorm and refine product visions, front-loading critical decision-making and setting the foundation for successful execution.”
Big Room Planning: “Big Room Planning, which involves all cross-functional stakeholders, ensures alignment on dependencies, risks, and timelines, enabling us to enter development with clarity and focus.”
This structured-yet-flexible framework allows us to move quickly without compromising quality or vision. It also positions us to adapt based on market feedback, ensuring that we’re always aligned with our users’ evolving needs. This balance of strategic foresight, cross-functional alignment and adaptability is what sets VSCO apart and makes it a great place to build and launch innovative products like VSCO Sites.
