“We are building the plane while flying it.”
It’s a common enough idiom among product teams, but the phrase doesn’t do justice to the Chainlink Labs team.
What might be closer to the truth: Chainlink Labs is building the plane, flying it, rewiring every air traffic control tower in the world, and testing rockets in their spare time.
What Chainlink Labs Does
Chainlink Labs is building Chainlink, the backbone of blockchain. Chainlink is the backbone of blockchain, the global standard connecting blockchains to real-world data, other blockchains, and public sector and enterprise systems, already widely adopted by major financial institutions, national governments, and top DeFi protocols.
Over the last eight years, Chainlink Labs’ 600-plus-person team has built what is now the backbone of blockchain. Today, that means they are constructing the bridge between Web2 and Web3—which looks different depending on where you start from. For example, Web3 projects need access to traditional systems, while Web2 industries and financial institutions need the ability to interact with blockchains and tokenized assets in a secure and reliable way.
The team is not just developing new products—they are creating the pathways to make blockchain technology the way the world works.
Building the plane, yes, but all while changing how planes fly, too.
Built for the Bold
The technical challenges the product team at Chainlink Labs takes on are sophisticated and arduous, but the type of folks who thrive doing this kind of work have developed a unique company culture centered on innovation and taking impactful risks.
“If you’re a bold person who cares about financial technology, blockchain technology, distributed systems, cryptography, any of the above—you absolutely belong at Chainlink Labs because we have the boldest vision and mission ahead of us,” Yossi Levanoni, Senior Vice President of Engineering, said.
Levanoni explained that the team is united in redefining what financial applications and services look like in the 21st century.
“We have a great hunch that the suite of services we have developed, and our ability to compose all of them into the Chainlink Runtime Environment, is going to be the enabling technology for our industry,” Levanoni said. “But we don’t have it all figured out.”
The pace and intensity of learning required at Chainlink Labs means that each team is stacked with polymaths, erudites, and experimenters. For those who want to be challenged by their work and see its impact in real time, it might be a perfect fit.
Giovana Totini, Chief People Officer, described her experience of joining Chainlink Labs as a transformation that required trying new things and pushing into the unknown.
“I had to revisit every paradigm that made me successful in my career to build something new because we have no right answers with where we’re headed,” Totini said.
A Team for the Intellectually Curious
One of the founders of Chainlink Labs, Steve Ellis, said it well: “What I’ve found is that smart people want to work on hard problems.”
Being bold has served the company well. Just three years into its existence, Chainlink Labs was selected as a “Technology Pioneer” by the World Economic Forum, a designation given to rising companies likely to produce tech that will alter global business and society. By the tail end of 2024, the company announced an expansion into the Middle East and North Africa.
Johann Eid, Chief Business Officer, said there are two things that are needed above all else to succeed at Chainlink Labs.
“The first one is believing in a mission,” Eid said.
There is a commonly held ideal at the company: decentralized tech like blockchain will change the global economic future.
“Our goal is to rebuild the world on a more transparent, fair system through blockchains,” Eid said. “Our part in this mission is enabling developers by bringing the data points they need to build applications onchain.”
“The second thing is being smart,” Eid continued. “It’s being able to challenge concepts. It’s being able to think of new things. It’s being able to pioneer.”
Chainlink Labs is a home for bold thinkers, innovators, and those comfortable with taking significant, impactful risks.
Global and Remote for a Reason
The hiring leaders at Chainlink Labs have taken a global approach to hiring talent. To bring the best minds together, Totini said, you can’t subscribe to geographical constraints.
“We’re remote for one reason: to find and empower the best people on the planet,” Totini said.
“We’re remote for one reason: to find and empower the best people on the planet.”
To facilitate building a world-class remote culture, Totini and the people team have created perks to support their fully remote team, like a monthly co-working space stipend, hardware allowance to build a work-from-home setup, business travel insurance, a meetup budget, and professional development stipends. The idea is to support employees to work in whatever way is best for them.
For Levanoni, “autonomy isn’t a perk; it’s a must.”
“That freedom to reorganize teams and pivot quickly to meet challenges drives real engineering breakthroughs,” he said.
An Invitation for Inventors
For those who find the unknown exciting—rather than intimidating—Chainlink Labs could be a good place to grow their career. After all, the employer has made a point to create a company culture where inventors thrive and “where the bold belong.”
“The way our world is built is changing completely,” Eid said. “We are at the pinnacle of a huge change in history.”
Eid explained that this change will push banks, governments, and institutions onchain.
“We’ve been empowered with a very important mission,” Eid said. “It’s not every day that you get to rebuild the world. You know, on a new system. These types of opportunities, they come maybe once in your lifetime.”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll be part of this transformational movement,” he continued. “And when people transform the world, they go about it in a very dedicated, direct way.”
Levanoni agreed and concluded: “From day one, I’ve seen every function, from engineering to business, fully locked into a shared mission. This deep sense of connection is exactly how we push boundaries and win together.”
