review.firstround.com · 2018-10-08
· 2795d
Four Org Design Rules for Scaling Through Hypergrowth: Lessons from Coinbase
Engineering leader Varun Srinivasan shares four organizational design rules Coinbase used to scale rapidly during the 2017 cryptocurrency boom when demand exploded unexpectedly. The article emphasizes shifting from short-term optimization to long-term thinking and structuring org charts to directly reflect product priorities.
Metrics in this report
Company Size at Reorg Point
80headcount
point-in-time
Total Coinbase employees when engineering restructured into 6 sub-teams
Engineering Team Size Growth
20 to 100+headcount
expansion range
Coinbase engineering during hypergrowth phase
Pre-hypergrowth Hiring Rate
2engineers per month
peak rate
Coinbase conservative hiring approach before 2017
Sub-team Count
6teams
count
Engineering division structure at 80-person company
Total Transaction Volume
$150 billion$
cumulative
Coinbase cryptocurrency exchanges processed