Coinbase Inc. today said it has hired Tim Wagner, previously a general manager at Amazon Web Services Inc., to become vice president of engineering at the rapidly growing cryptocurrency outfit.

Wagner joins Coinbase with a wealth of experience in cloud services and development. He spent six years at Microsoft Corp. in the role of director of development, Visual Studio Ultimate, before joining Amazon in January 2013 where he first served as general manager for AWS Lambda before taking up the expanded role of GM for AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway and AWS Serverless App Repository.

Announcing Wagner’s move, Coinbase Chief Executive Brian Armstrong wrote on the Coinbase Blog that engineering was part of the company’s core strategy to deliver the “most trusted and easiest to use cryptocurrency products and services” and that Wagner would lead and expand the engineering team.

“Through this period of rapid growth, we are more focused than ever on meeting the increasing needs of individuals, institutions and businesses while continually advancing the frontiers of cryptocurrency,” Armstrong said. “At the same time, we’re creating the infrastructure that will allow us to add more assets to our platform and accelerate the adoption of crypto around the world.”

Wagner took to Twitter to discuss his new role, talking up Coinbase’s mission to “create the world’s most secure, open and accessible financial system.”

“As AWS did for distributed systems, Coinbase is helping developers and users take advantage of disruptive technologies like Blockchain and cryptocurrencies,” he said. Wagner was something of a guru on serverless computing, on which he provided insight in a recent interview with SiliconANGLE.

Photo: Coinbase