Originally published on expo.dev/blog by Seth Webster.
I recently joined Expo as Chief Developer Evangelist while I continue to serve as Executive Director of the newly formed React Foundation. I want to share my excitement about where we are, and why I am so thrilled to be here.
Why I made this move
Most teams do not run out of ideas. They run into drag.
Over time, more and more effort goes into managing complexity instead of creating value. At some point even the cost of your own success can be debilitating.
That is the category of problems Expo has been solving for people for years.
Expo gives developers the fastest path from their brain to a shipped product. Period. It helps teams start quickly, iterate with tight feedback loops, and reach multiple platforms without turning every product decision into infrastructure work.
That matters because developer velocity is not just about convenience… It is how teams learn faster. It is how companies stay close to their users. It is how more good ideas actually make it into the world.
This is also how I see React… an incredibly high leverage tool when it comes to my north star: unleashing all of humanity on the totality of the world’s problems. Anything that shortens the distance between a random thought and a solution will, at the very least, catch my eye.
Expo & AI
What makes this moment especially compelling to me is the convergence of two shifts.
AI has become a collaborator in software development and mobile remains one of the primary ways we experience software.
Those things together matter. When software becomes easier to generate, the bottleneck moves from tooling to shipping. The teams that win will be the ones with the shortest path from intent to working product.
Expo is incredibly well positioned for that future… I have yet to meet a more developer-obsessed team than the one here at Expo.
Expo already gives teams rapid feedback loops, a strong foundation in React, and a practical path to building across platforms. Just as important, the team understands something many people miss: speed only matters when it helps people build better products, and better products only happen when people have the time to sweat the small stuff.
For me, the product Expo is building matters. The people matter just as much.
In Charlie Cheever, James Ide, and the broader engineering team, I saw something I care deeply about: real technical conviction paired with long-term ecosystem thinking. Then I met Evan Bacon, and it was a transformative meeting for me, one that stayed with me and became part of my story.
Moments like that are rare and not easily dismissed.
The best platform teams do not just solve today’s problems. They create leverage for everyone building on top of them. They think about trust. They think about durability. They think about what developers, and now agents, will need next, not just what they need right now.
I knew then that these were people I wanted to work with. That this was the kind of work I wanted to be part of.
My role at Expo
As Chief Developer Evangelist, my job is to help the Expo ecosystem grow in depth, reach, and impact.
That means helping teams adopt Expo at scale, strengthening the connection between Expo and the broader React ecosystem, supporting the next generation of AI-assisted development workflows, and growing the global community around Expo and React Native.
In practical terms, I’ll be spending time with developers, companies, and community leaders to help more ideas become real products.
I’ve believed for a long time that the most important technology in the world is not software itself.
It is the people who build it.
Tools give people leverage. Good tools give them velocity. Great tools give them momentum.
We knew this when we (React) recommended Expo as the default framework for developing for mobile, but the number of exciting things this team has in store for this next era boggles the mind.
I couldn’t be more thrilled to be here, and look forward to spending more time with you all.
P.S. If you want to come work with me/us, [*we're hiring](https://expo.dev/careers)!*
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