Coinbase Consumer offsite at Stinson Beach

I joined Coinbase & I’m over the Moon

The beginning of a journey through the blockchain world

If we ever met during my days at Twitter you probably noticed my enthusiasm for companies that foster a strong company culture, as well as supporting personalities and passions. Finding the right work environment can be challenging, so it follows that choosing to transition to a new company can be just as tough.

When you live in a hub of innovation and creativity like San Francisco, the number of choices can seem endless because hundreds of companies are always competing for the best talent and striving to build a unique and dynamic culture.

Leaving Twitter

In 2015, my choice to leave Twitter was a little more straightforward. I wanted to help build something new, and my focus was on productivity software. I decided to co-found Plan, and throughout three years we went from having a few thousand users to over 35k monthly active users spread out over 180 countries.

The product is quite simple at its core: it combines a calendar app with a to-do list and intelligently organizes projects and tasks from the tools anyone on an teach team regularly uses.

As is necessary for a new company, the product has gone through many iterations, evolving and adapting to stabilize its purpose. Plan went from being a consumer app, to a targeted enterprise solution with clients falling in love with its tools to simplify anything from a weekly sprint to organizing a roadmap.

As you endeavor to set up the product for success, you learn that it is even more critical to set yourself up for a journey of continuous learning. This helped me develop from a beginning web engineer to a grounded, young entrepreneur. I allotted my free time to studying new topics that included customer success, marketing, product development, and even sales. With each book I read on a new subject, I was inspired to continue my exploration of other relevant topics. Some of my favorite titles have been, “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” and “Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice”, which opened my eyes to what running a company could look like when the hard times hit, and how to predict great innovation methodologically.

Following your passions and pursuing what interests you sometimes means diverging from the path you expected to take, and embarking on a new adventure.

…which is exactly what happened to me.

After more than a year of focusing on the groundbreaking economic and technological discovery that is Blockchain, I decided to leave Plan and follow this new venture.

Week by week my focus became concentrated on the budding young industry of Cryptocurrencies. I was rediscovering my initial love for the Web because I was seeing what it could become over the next two decades. It has only been 10 years since Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper and opened our minds to technology’s ability to enable an open financial system. For me, this feels like a unique opportunity to help shape what the next decade of Blockchain and Web innovation could be.

I want to thank the whole Plan team; you encouraged me and supported my choice to pursue my passion. Thank you!

I left the vision to build the “central brain of work life” in one of the most talented engineering and product teams I’ve had the opportunity to work with. I have no doubts they will continue to build an inspiring product.

Grazie Darshan, Artur, Thomas and Nick.

A journey of continuous learning

I joined Coinbase as a Web Engineer for the Consumer product and I have already fallen in love with it for countless reasons, including the frontend consumer guild. The whole team is incredibly talented, helpful, and after 10 years in the industry, is the first group of front-end engineers I’ve worked with that has an equal number of women and men.

This is exciting!

Here are a few highlights of the culture, from my first few weeks at Coinbase:

1. My onboarding buddy Melissa was outstanding- even in a rapid growth startup with many new features; I was given the tools to be able to jump-start my productivity by leverage on tons of automation already in place and provide efficient execution on my first tasks from week one. It was an incredible feeling.
2. Within Consumer, I work in the Engagement squad, where everyone provides positive energy, works together to coordinate solving tasks, and involves the whole team in planning new features while sharing feedback. Though I just started, it feels like we’ve been working together for years.
3. Between teams and co-workers, I quickly noticed how crucial clear communication is, and how foundational it is throughout the company. Even holding meetings between different Coinbase office locations is handled smoothly. I’m looking forward to continued improvement of my communication skills.
4. I’m a naturally curious person, and having the opportunity to learn how to work optimally in a new environment while being encouraged to broaden my knowledge, is exactly what I was looking for. Every person I have met has been super helpful, going out of their way to help me begin a project or face a new challenge, all with a gracious spirit of mentoring and continued learning across all guilds and teams. Each day it feels like I learn something new, whether it’s about web development, cryptocurrencies or helping shape a great company product and culture.

Dan, Anna Marie, Melissa and myself at the end of the offsite

I have only been at Coinbase for a few weeks, but I am already over the moon. Every day I feel empowered to do well and I am surrounded by creative, resilient, and optimistic people; I don’t expect anything less than incredible and unique hypergrowth for Coinbase, the engagement team and myself.

Stay tuned for more about where this new chapter takes me. Grazie e a presto.

Offsite hike at the Dipsea Trail — Stinson Beach

If you’re interested in blockchain or are looking to join an incredible Web and Mobile engineering team building the open financial system for the world, shoot me a DM.