Q&A: Gemini’s CTO Pravjit Tiwana on Building the Future of Web3

At the beginning of the year, we welcomed our new CTO, Pravjit Tiwana, who joined us from Amazon Web Services (AWS). Pravjit leads our Engineering, Product, and Information Security teams, with a vision of building customer-centric innovative products that harness the opportunities of Web3, the Metaverse, and decentralized finance. Earlier this month, we sat down with Pravjit to discuss his vision and strategy for enhancing Gemini’s suite of products, and his plans to continue to build a world-class engineering organization.

In our conversation below, we covered topics such as Pravjit’s vision for the crypto industry, and why he believes that Gemini is particularly well-positioned to play a leading role in unlocking the next era of financial, creative, and personal freedom.

After more than six years at AWS, what attracted you to the crypto industry?

Every few years, we see a paradigm shift in technology — we saw this with the birth of the internet and with the evolution of Web2 and expansion of cloud computing. We are now entering the next pivotal moment, one toward a distributed internet.

I was lucky to be part of the cloud computing journey that started in the early 2000s. The learnings and outcomes of that journey were transformational for me in understanding how the power of the cloud could enable the world to be more innovative and productive.

Now, with Web3 and decentralized token-based economics, I see an opportunity to redefine the internet and aim for true economic freedom and flexibility. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to contribute to, influence, and most importantly, catalyze the next generation of how the online world will behave and operate.

And, why did you choose Gemini?

I have always been drawn to opportunities that allow me to solve customer-centric complex technical challenges at scale while driving innovation that makes an impact, and the mission of Gemini aligns with my passion.

I feel reinvigorated to work with a dedicated team and build a decentralized and open financial system based on the blockchain, and believe in Tyler and Cameron’s vision for the company. They have given me a platform to build high-scale distributed systems, as well as the opportunity to scale architectures, products, processes, and people.

The overall culture at Gemini is super aligned to what I look for — it’s exciting to walk into work and see passion and drive from the team. I do believe Gemini to be a company which will not just be a strong contributor to Web3 but a catalyst to its innovation and growth in the coming years.

Tyler and Cameron have talked about building the future of money, finance, and the Metaverse. What is your vision and strategy to help the company achieve this as we enter this next evolution of the internet?

While we are still early days in Web3, decentralized finance, and the Metaverse, Gemini is one of the pioneers in this industry that will help our customers transition into a digital and decentralized future. To ensure Gemini continues to be an innovative leader in this space, I’m focused on the following key milestones:

• Continue to build products which are simple, secure, scalable and delight the customer, which is our ethos for developing any product, be it in Web2 or Web3. The core mission of crypto/Web3 companies is no different in the sense that we have to be customer-obsessed and build products that empower them and enhance their lives. Customer asks are at the core of any product development plan, and they are particularly so for next-generation, transformational technologies like crypto.
• Build a world-class bar-raising engineering organization. As crypto and Web3 have gained momentum and robust investment, I believe the promise of a better decentralized internet will lead to increased talent migration from traditional technology companies, as curious and learning-driven talent will seek new opportunities to be part of this transformational wave. With the disruptive promise of Web3, we are potentially going to witness an impact that has parallels to the introduction of personal computing, cloud computing, and the internet itself. For me, and many others in the tech industry, the opportunity to be part of a seismic shift like this is impossible to ignore.
• Relentless focus on making Gemini products operationally indistinguishable from perfect. I have always believed that all successful products have a strong foundation in service fundamentals of security, availability, and performance. These service fundamentals require intense focus on operational health, processes and rigor. Gemini is a technology company where not just product development, but operations, are led by engineers. Being operationally aware right from the get go of the product development, enables us to become more effective in the development of high-performance and scalable software.

For engineers specifically interested in joining your team, what are some specific qualifications or requirements you are looking for?

Most of Gemini’s engineers are able to work across the software stack, not just on their own specialization or subteam. We welcome talent from all organizations, and not just the finance world, with a passion for this wave of innovation. I’m specifically looking for individuals who have a track record of strong delivery, strong sense of ownership coupled with a sense of urgency to build and ship products which touch the lives of millions of users across the world.

Gemini is currently looking to hire bar-raising engineers to deliver value to our customers with speed and reliability in multiple areas including web, mobile, data, machine learning, infrastructure, security, and backend systems. If you are interested in joining Pravjit and the Gemini mission, please review our Engineering openings on our careers page.

Onward and Upward!

Team Gemini