What’s it like to work for the world’s first cryptocurrency bank
Bitwala is bridging the gap between the traditional financial and blockchain world
In the past, Bitcoin has always been an unregulated market and due to many compliance reasons, these two worlds, despite being both financial, have remained separate.
Bitwala is merging these industries for the first time by offering a cryptocurrency bank account.
Customers can use a Euro online bank account and trade Bitcoin safely, all from one product. A Master Card is linked to the online bank account to spend euro and bitcoin both online and offline. The product additionally holds a bitcoin wallet to store bitcoin in.
We are working constantly to develop awesome features to bring you the ultimate crypto banking experience. There’s so much to do and we’re getting stuck in!
Building the product has taken an impressive team effort, determination and creativity from all our employees.
We invite you to discover the essential background of the company and how our teams organised their work to build and improve our beloved product.
Structure
Bitwala was founded in 2015 by three founders, at that time the team was so small, no organisational structure was necessary.
Over the years we grew to a team of 60 international professionals from almost every corner of the globe to build the world’s first blockchain bank.
The time to architect an organisational structure had come faster than we expected, so we started designing Bitwala’s structure based on our goal to disrupt the banking industry.
Inspired by Spotify’s Squads & Chapters we decided to adopt the same framework.
“Squads” are small cross-functional disciplinary teams built of a mix of engineers, designers and product managers, while “Chapters” are departments such as Engineering, Marketing and on.
Our Squads have been created around the key domains of our product.
With a high degree of ownership, squads work in an agile way to achieve Bitwala’s roadmap goals. The decision on which methodology to use is up to each squad, whether Lean, Kanban or Scrum; these are the most common here at Bitwala.
We currently have 5 squads and we are planning to have many more in the future:
- Acquisition Squad
- Cryptobank Squad
- Reporting Squad
- Markets Squad
- Onboarding and Growth Squad
Each squad has a squad lead who is responsible to execute the roadmap together with the squad. Every Bitwala employee is part of a chapter, but not always a part of a specific squad. However, squad leads can involve non-squad members in squad ops when their expertise is necessary.
A functional organisation such as Squads & Chapters allows for more collaboration and higher level of efficiency when needing to ship or fix features of a new product.
We are still at the very start of adopting this organisational structure and we are looking forward to improving Bitwala’s work methodologies to grow stronger as a team and to bring the most possible value to our users.
Environment
Hierarchy: Flat hierarchy where everyone is treated equally, we are all expected to pilot the ship further, no time for political and awful power games.
Teamwork: We always work together as a team to broaden our customer’s financial life by providing a bridge to access blockchain finance.
Employees: Our team members are crypto experts, diverse, social and smart
Office: High tech equipment, dog friendly open office, Berlin loft style
Workload
Rigorous tasks, complex problems.
Working in a new industry also brings new types of problems, mostly technical, financial and legal.
Teamwork is necessary to overcome these, you will not always be able to finish your work or solve problems all alone.
Management
Transparency: Management is always being the most transparent when it comes to the organization as a whole, this transparency helps our employees feel connected to the organization. Management also goes in depth on various parts of the company that every employee might not know about, which builds a sense of unity and ownership.
Value: Great work is valued, always.
Support: Management is always there for employees, no matter what.
Positivity: Young, experienced management team, always trying to keep things positive despite the hard or stressful startup situations.
What to expect: managing a career at Bitwala and the lifestyle that comes with it
A career in crypto will give you the chance to expect the unexpected. In an industry that is in constant development, you will meet the most influential people in the blockchain industry, acquire first-hand knowledge on cryptocurrencies from real experts.
At Bitwala there are great opportunities and many career paths for those who want to start or change their career to crypto, you will be able to explore opportunities in technology, finance, trading, support, banking operations, marketing and communications and HR.
