As we celebrated International Programmers' Day 2024 last week, we thought it would be a great time to sit down with one of Wix’s first developers, co-founder and CEO, Avishai Abrahami to glean some of his wisdom.
In this exclusive interview, Avishai offers a unique perspective on the developer's journey, from novice to master craftsman. He shares invaluable insights on scaling global platforms, maintaining developer velocity, and the transformative power of AI in web development.
Whether you're a coding veteran or just starting out, Avishai's practical advice and forward-thinking vision are sure to inspire. Join us as we delve into the mind of a true industry innovator.
1 - Before diving into Wix’s story and the technical challenges behind it, we wanted to hear from your own experience as a developer: What are the key attributes of a great developer, and how can one cultivate these attributes?
The career of a developer is made of different phases. Every phase of the developer lifecycle has different attributes. But one thing is consistent: the ability to collaborate with people, meaning you should be able to listen to people, teach people, and work with people. This is by far the most important quality to have as a developer.
The first phase of a developer's career lasts about four years during which you will start thinking about the ifs, loops and bugs. You think you know how to code after these four years. But the reality is, you actually only know how to solve simple problems. At this stage of your career, you need consistency, stamina, attention to detail and the ability to try things over and over again.
The next phase lasts about six years and is the time you start thinking about design patterns. This is when you think you know it all. The thing is, you still have so much to learn. It’s not that you’re not a good developer, but you still need to go through these mandatory formative “teenage” years of your career to eventually reach maturity. And just like with a teenager, talking with you is pointless and a bit obnoxious.
For this second phase, the best attribute to have is the ability to understand you still have a lot to learn. If you don't know what I am talking about right now, you are probably in this phase as we speak.
The third phase is when you start thinking about systems, boxes, servers, and the technology. This is a key phase, as you start connecting everything together. At this point you are finally beginning to be qualified to build the technology. You understand the big picture, and how things should connect, work and grow.
The fourth and final stage, that I notice, is when you actually become a great developer, when you are able to think about the minimum level of design for the maximum impact of a system. The minimum level is significant because it means that you didn’t limit the system to the current implementation. At this stage of your career, you need to be able to think about things on a very high level but then be able to zoom into the smallest details.
And when you finally start to master certain skills, what will make you great at what you do, is being brave. Because when you look at the minimalistic design of software elements, courage is the attribute that is most needed.
You need the ability to know when you need a library and when you don't, when it’s going to give value and when it’s not, how you can create something that you can switch around. You need to make brave and wise decisions based on the wisdom acquired by experience. That’s how your design will stand out from every other normal design. You know you’ve reached this stage when you can focus on how to facilitate the reusing of components thanks to a minimalist software design.
There are two more qualities that I would like to emphasize. You simply need to love technology, otherwise, you will find the work to be very boring. If you love it and you see the art in it, then it will be amazing. In fact I would even go as far as to say that programming, writing a lot of code, a lot of lines, is very technical, and unappealing for most people, but if you understand the technical aspects, see the beauty in what you are creating, it becomes part of your nature, and you can truly become an artist. Great developers are artists.
This could be surprising but you also need to laugh at yourself. You need to look back at all your mistakes, crazy ideas and things you built, and be able to laugh at yourself.
If you love it and you see the art in it, then it will be amazing.
2 - More than 85,000 Wix websites are created every day, and it has over 270 million users from 190 countries. With these gigantic numbers, what are the most unique technical challenges you encounter with Wix’s growth?
Of course, we’re constantly tackling issues like billing across different regions, GDPR compliance, how things work in Brazil compared to the U.S. and to countries in Africa, performance, etc.
When you start a company, the first big challenge is velocity—the ability to iterate quickly and release new features. If you can nail this, your company is on the right track because you can test and improve faster, which is crucial for success.
As your company grows, another challenge emerges: standardization. This is where things get really tricky. For example, building one microservice is pretty straightforward. There’s plenty of information out there to guide you.
But when you scale that to thousands of microservices, it becomes a whole different ball game. You need to be able to support them, to upgrade them, to understand what is happening, the relationships between them, the different correlations. What worked for one doesn’t necessarily apply when you have to manage thousands.
You need to rethink your approach and build infrastructure that can handle that scale. The same goes for UI elements. Managing one table or list is simple, but when you have thousands, consistency and the ability to upgrade them simultaneously become a significant challenge. So, our first big challenge was velocity and iteration, and the second was standardization. Overcoming these was critical to our success, and they continue to be important.
Looking ahead, we’re still focused on improving velocity and standardization because better performance and stability will make a huge difference for our customers and contribute to Wix’s continued success.
3 - We know from many large companies that as companies grow and their system becomes complex the development velocity is reduced. How does Wix improve and maintain developer’s velocity, doing 600 deployments/day with the growing complexity of its platform and ever changing regulations?
As we grow, we’re not just dealing with more complexity in our environment—we’re also dealing with more complexity in the world around us. For example, there are new regulations in countries we hadn’t encountered before or unexpected issues with traffic and payments that we didn’t even know we had to solve.
We can resolve this in three different ways. First, we’re building a lot of libraries—like API libraries and building systems, both for Wix and our customers. These centralized resources allow us to reuse components, which saves time and effort. It’s a challenge because everyone thinks that if they handle things themselves, it’ll be faster. Plus, there’s always a queue for the tools and systems being developed by that central group. But the value we get from this approach is incredible.
Second, we’re focusing on standardization. Projects like Wix Nile and Cairo are great examples. Nile provides a unified service system where you just write your business logic, and everything else is handled for you. Thanks to these initiatives, our teams are much more productive now than they were in the early days. This is largely due to the bold moves made by the client and server teams, which have allowed us to standardize and streamline our processes.
Lastly, we’re investing heavily in our people, especially in training new engineers on how we do things at Wix. This continuous improvement in our specialized practices adds tremendous value. Our guild structure has been instrumental in making this work seamlessly.
4 - Steve Jobs said: “The way you get programmer productivity is not by increasing the lines of code per programmer per day. That doesn’t work. The way you get programmer productivity is by eliminating lines of code you have to write. The line of code that’s the fastest to write, that never breaks, that doesn’t need maintenance, is the line you never had to write”. What is your take on this insight and how it reflects within Wix?
This quote was sent to me three or four years ago because it was something I would continuously say at Wix. Of course not at the master level of articulation that Steve Jobs had. When you’ve been in the field for 12-15 years, there are certain things you just get better at understanding, and this is one of them.
The trick to making this work often lies in standardization and creating an opinionated environment. In this environment, you don’t have to spell everything out—the system already assumes what you mean because that’s how things have always been done.
For a software company, there’s nothing more valuable than what Jobs pointed out. It’s probably the most important advice you could get.
5 - Can you share insights on how Wix approaches developer experience and what steps you take to ensure Wix’s tools and APIs are developer-friendly?
It’s not just the CEO’s responsibility to ensure that APIs are developed and built well—it’s everyone’s job. Team leaders play a crucial role in guiding their teams, and the VPs of R&D in each group need to make sure they actually care about this. You can’t be a good developer if you’re not creating high-quality APIs; it’s a huge part of the job. It’s like saying you’re a good chef, but your dishes look terrible. If you want to be a great chef, your dishes need to look amazing too.
As the CEO, I believe one of the most impactful things I can do is encourage teams to publish their APIs openly within the company, especially when there’s friction or something isn’t working well because it gives you the motivation to improve. Even better, if we can publish these as services outside of Wix, we often see tremendous improvements.
While my direct influence on this is limited, it’s still one of the most important aspects to manage and ensure that the quality remains high.
6 - Wix has been at the forefront of using AI since 2016, when we first launched our artificial design intelligence (ADI) capabilities to enhance user experience. Can you share some of the most exciting AI-driven features you’ve integrated into Wix recently?
We released ADI in 2016, and it was the first time a huge number of consumers were exposed to what AI could really do. But it didn’t come without internal criticism. There were two main points: one was that it 'wasn’t really AI' because the algorithms weren’t that sophisticated, and I still remember those comments. The other criticism was that we were scaring people with AI.
Interestingly, over the years, our teams worked hard to remove references to AI from the product and ironically completed this project the year ChatGPT became popular—the most crucial time to actually have AI as part of your brand. It just goes to show that being ahead of the curve isn’t always appreciated.
As for the algorithms, yes, they were simpler back then. We didn’t have transformers, which were released a year after ADI, in 2017. So, naturally, our tools weren’t as advanced as what we have now. But if you compare what ADI could do, to today’s AI website creators, it’s still probably better than 99% of them. Even with those basic algorithms, we nailed the product experience, offering something that was way ahead of its time and provided tremendous value to our users.
Our new AI website builder is far more advanced, and there isn’t any debate about whether it’s truly AI or how sophisticated it is. We’re using very sophisticated algorithms, many of which were developed in-house, which is something I’m really proud of. For me, that’s the number one achievement because it’s used by all our users and combines so much technology.
But there are so many other exciting developments coming. I’m particularly thrilled about what we’re doing with support and agents. The idea that you don’t have to search for answers—you just ask and get an instant response, often with the AI doing the task for you—is astonishing. It works incredibly well, and by the end of the year, almost every product in Wix will have a chat assistant. That’s another fascinating area.
When I think about what excites me most now, it’s not just the AI itself but how we’re using new technology to provide real value and solve actual problems. There are so many opportunities to innovate, and that’s what makes all of this so exciting.
I think the possibilities of AI are endless in our industry but here is a list of things I find extremely promising:
AI website builder, AI native mobile app builder, AI image creator, AI image editor, AI object eraser, AI extend, AI cut out, AI text creator, AI section creator, AI theme assistant, responsive AI, AI email generator, AI for Google Ads, AI text for social captions, AI SEO keyword assistant, AI blog tools, AI portfolio creator, AI analytics assistant, AI event creation.
7 - How do you see the role of AI evolving in web development over the next five years, and what should developers focus on to stay ahead of the curve?
The obvious answer is design—things like graphics, images, and the ability to create stunning websites. But that’s just one side of it. The other answer, equally important, is how AI can help you build your business. AI isn’t just a tool; it can actually initiate actions and suggest strategies that will work wonders for your business.
Take SEO, for example. AI can say, ‘Let’s make your site better,’ and then it can handle the first phase of SEO for you by writing keywords, generating content, and even creating social posts to boost your site’s visibility. It’s like hiring an agent or expert to work for you, except that expert is AI.
What’s incredible about this is the amount of value it provides. If we do this right, it shouldn’t even feel like you’re using AI—it should feel like you’ve hired an expert who just happens to be AI. And that’s truly game-changing.
8 - As developers, we love knowing that our code and work make an impact, influence, and improve the lives of others. Can you share with us a special case where you learned how Wix is helping people around the world?
On the surface, it might seem like the most we can do is help people create websites. It’s hard to imagine how that could truly change someone’s life, but over the years, we’ve seen that it really can.
One of the stories that stands out is about one of our biggest agencies, started by a guy who began using Wix when he was just 14. His dad had been laid off, his mom wasn’t earning much, and they were on the brink of losing their house. Desperate to help, he searched online for ways to make money and discovered Wix. He started building websites for others, became really successful, and now runs a company with over 100 employees. He, of course, paid off the mortgage and has grown his business tremendously. Every time I meet him, he says, 'I owe you that.'
Over 10 years ago, I received an email from a guy in the Peace Corps who was stationed in a remote village in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The village had just gotten a road in 1999, electricity in 2003, and basic internet in 2006. The road had created a boom in tourism. The villagers understood the importance of having a website to provide tourism information and market the area, but they didn't think they had the skills to build a website so they outsourced, which was expensive and hard for them to maintain.
This Peace Corps volunteer knew about Wix and introduced them to the platform and helped the villagers build their sites from scratch, manage their business and their marketing so they could thrive independently. The websites they created brought in tourism, completely transforming their community. He even sent a picture of villagers in traditional Moroccan clothes, sitting on the floor of a clay house, designing the website on a computer. It’s always incredible to see these use cases.
By giving people powerful tools, we’re enabling them to take control of their lives and make a real difference.
By giving people powerful tools, we’re enabling them to take control of their lives and make a real difference.
9 - In the latest “TLV Tech Ecosystem Report,” Wix topped the list with 25 (!) successful companies created by developers who worked at Wix. How do you create an environment that fosters innovation and encourages employees to explore their entrepreneurial ambitions?
That’s a great question, and you’re right—it does seem like we’re outside of the bell curve. In fact, it’s actually more than 25 now; a few more companies have been added to that list recently. So, how does this happen? I have a theory that it boils down to two key factors.
First, at Wix, we’ve always embraced the philosophy of pushing decisions down the line. What that means is that I probably have an easier job than most CEOs. When I talk to other CEOs, they often mention having to make 100 decisions a day and constantly being on call to handle every little detail. When they ask me how many decisions I make, I say, 'maybe five a month.' That’s because we empower people at Wix to take ownership and responsibility. This approach gives our team the confidence and experience to make important decisions, which is invaluable for anyone thinking about starting their own company.
In successful companies, a big part of what makes them great, is the ability to delegate decision-making. On the other hand, they are already used to making hard decisions, because they have already done it along the way. This is what makes them who they really are.
So, how do I know I can trust people to make those decisions? We’ve put a lot of best practices in place, and that gives us confidence. For example, everyone at Wix knows how to work with BI (business intelligence). We’ve drilled into our people a specific way to analyze data and measure success. Most companies fail not because their business idea is bad, but because they don’t know how to measure ROI, run A/B tests, or evaluate the success of their features.
By instilling these best practices, we ensure that when someone leaves Wix to start their own company, they already have a strong foundation to build on. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel—they can rely on what they’ve learned here, and it will work. That’s one of the biggest assets we provide.
The second factor is that we didn’t just take random people off the street; we’ve invested a huge amount of energy into hiring the best. When you’re successful in hiring top talent, it naturally increases the chances that these people will go on to succeed in their own ventures.
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