Jorge Valdeiglesias
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Selected work · 03

Growing BitGo’s blockchain organization alongside the business

I joined BitGo with no previous crypto experience and chose the blockchain team because it was the most technically demanding. I earned credibility by learning the domain from first principles. As the business grew and my manager left, leadership became the work the organization needed from me.

Institutional custody · Blockchain platform and organization

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My role

Started as a senior blockchain engineer with no prior crypto experience, then grew into engineering leadership while remaining deeply involved in technical direction, hiring, and organization design.

Context

The conditions that shaped the work.

Context
More customers, blockchains, products, engineering work, and operational complexity accumulated as BitGo grew.
Constraints
Every new chain and product increased operational complexity. Growth could never compromise the reliability and security of institutional custody or the customer assets it protected.
Core tension
A single blockchain team could no longer support the pace of the business, but changing the organization too early would have created ownership boundaries before the work justified them.

Timeline

How the work progressed.

  1. 01

    Entry

    Earn credibility through the work

    I joined as a senior blockchain engineer, learned crypto from first principles, and stayed deeply hands-on in the most technically demanding team.

  2. 02

    Step up

    Respond when leadership became necessary

    When my manager left, I identified where ownership and coordination were breaking down and proposed a structure around the work.

  3. 03

    Specialize

    Add teams and leaders as demand grew

    Specialized teams, engineering managers, and senior technical leaders created clearer responsibility across the platform.

  4. 04

    Transition

    Turn temporary capacity into durable ownership

    A contractor partner bridged the recruiting gap, then reliance was reduced as full-time teams took ownership.

Decisions

Key choices and their tradeoffs.

Let the business reveal the organization

Create specialized teams only after recurring demand exposed real ownership bottlenecks.

Tradeoff

The organization evolved incrementally instead of following a complete blueprint defined in advance.

Add management and technical leadership together

Hire engineering managers and senior technical leaders around different missing responsibilities.

Tradeoff

More leadership capacity improved ownership, but each role needed a clear reason beyond adding hierarchy.

Use contractors as a bridge

Add contractor capacity while permanent recruiting caught up, with a deliberate path toward full-time ownership.

Tradeoff

The bridge absorbed rapid growth, but it created an obligation to transfer context and reduce reliance over time.

Decision path
  1. Business growth
  2. Ownership pressure
  3. Specialized teams
  4. Durable full-time ownership

Outcomes

What changed.

  1. Helped scale blockchain engineering from roughly five engineers to more than fifty across seven specialized teams.
  2. Hired engineering managers and senior technical leaders around emerging ownership needs.
  3. Used contractor capacity as a deliberate bridge, then reduced reliance as full-time teams took ownership.

Lesson learned

Organizations should evolve when the business demands it, then become durable enough to outlast the bridge that created them.

Continue

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