Zappi Growth Stories: From Intern to Staff Engineer with Nicholas Moorcroft

In our latest Zappi Growth Story, we sat down with Nicholas Moorcroft, who has grown from a security intern to a Staff Engineer working across a global workforce of more than 100 engineers and product experts. Nicholas plays a key role in ensuring platform quality and solving pain points for our customers — driving engineering initiatives across 10+ teams that improve developer experience and unlock the productivity needed to deliver exceptional customer outcomes.

In this conversation, Nicholas shares how he elevated himself by “acting like a Staff Engineer” long before the title was official. We also talk about his personal growth journey, who he’d switch roles with at Zappi, and what he loves most about our distributed culture.

(this interview has been lightly edited for clarity)

Hey, I’m Nick Moorcroft, a Staff Engineer based in our Cape Town office. I’ve been with Zappi for eight years, and I love solving hard problems alongside great people. I actually came across the company by chance — I was finishing an internship at another organization when I got a call from Mark Regensberg, our former Head of Security. He had just landed in Cape Town and said, “Hey, I heard you do security. Want to come work at this weird company where people walk around barefoot and use MacBooks?”

I stopped by the Cape Town office, met Hati, our now Head of Security, and Mark, and immediately loved the environment — the autonomy, the energy, and the chance to work on complex, interesting problems with curious, motivated people.

After my internship, I went part-time, then full-time. Around that time, Hati encouraged me to join our CTO, Brendon’s team. Brendon suggested I move into a software engineering role, saying it would be a great fit for my interests and ambition.

That turned out to be a pivotal decision. I started working on our respondent experience and data collection systems — and from there, I just kept asking for the hardest problems to solve. Over the years, I’ve worked on about seven different teams at Zappi, always chasing big challenges and learning from incredible mentors along the way.

Zappi is an amazing place for people who like to push — to ask for big opportunities rather than wait for them. I’ve always found that when you show hunger, leadership meets you halfway.

Throughout my career, I’ve felt empowered to pursue growth. And whenever I’ve felt like I was plateauing, it’s never taken long to find a new opportunity that reignites that sense of challenge.

Yes — at one point, I went to my manager and said, “I want to be a Staff Engineer.” At the time the role didn’t exist, so their response was, “start acting like one.”

It was great advice. The Staff Engineer role can be ambiguous — especially in a company evolving from startup to growth stage. At the time, we only had one staff engineer, and there wasn’t a formal blueprint for what that looked like. So I started seeking external mentorship, attending conferences, and working with internal coaches through our mentorship program to understand what that role really meant. I began embodying it in my day-to-day work until it naturally became the next step.

It’s been fascinating. In the early days, we were small, flat, and mostly local — so collaboration happened naturally in person. As we’ve grown and become more distributed globally, it’s taken new skills to keep that same level of connection and influence.

Learning how to collaborate, share ideas, and drive change remotely has been one of the biggest challenges — and opportunities — in my career. It’s a different kind of leadership, but it’s just as rewarding.

We’re incredibly lucky here — the office sits right below Table Mountain, with tons of natural light and open space. It’s a place that genuinely makes you happy to come to work.

And Lisa, our office manager, deserves huge credit. She’s been here for years and makes sure the space always feels welcoming, warm and productive. It really contributes to our culture and energy.

Definitely our Slack emoji culture. We have a channel just for emoji announcements, and people are constantly adding new ones — often inspired by team moments, pets, or memes. It’s a fun, creative outlet that adds levity to our workday.

We even used to have “Slack Emoji Olympics” where we voted for the best new creations. That’s something I’d love to bring back!

I’d pick Julio, our Chief Customer Officer. He gets to talk to customers every day, which is something I’d love to experience more of. As an engineer, I focus on optimizing systems, processes and workflows — but hearing directly from customers about their experiences would add an even richer perspective.

Learn how to write a great pamphlet.

What I mean is: be able to communicate an idea so clearly and compellingly that it grabs attention immediately — like something on a bulletin board you can’t walk past. If you can frame a problem and your solution in a way that excites people internally, you’ll find it much easier to make things happen.

Stop being so cynical. I used to hold myself to such high standards that I’d be overly critical of myself and others. Over time, I’ve learned that empathy and communication are just as important as technical skill and execution.

I’d probably hand my younger self a copy of Crucial Conversations and say, “Read this — even if you think you won’t.”

 I’m currently focused on something called the Friction Logs — an internal feedback mechanism that helps engineers surface what’s slowing them down in their day-to-day work.

We’ve identified a few big themes from that feedback, and next up is improving the local development experience for engineers. Making development faster and smoother will have a massive impact — not just on engineering, but on the quality of what we deliver to customers.

At Zappi, we’re proud to celebrate the growth and achievements of our team members like Nicholas. If you’re inspired by stories of curiosity, ambition, and impact — and want to be part of a company where your ideas and initiative truly matter — explore career opportunities with us.