Written by Adam Vincent
At the intersection of gaming, trading platforms, and esports sits CS.MONEY, one of the world’s largest marketplaces for trading in-game items, primarily skins from CS:GO and CS2. Managing such a platform comes with unique technical challenges, particularly its reliance on Steam’s API, a notoriously unpredictable external system.
CS.MONEY is a real-time digital trading platform that enables millions of users to buy, sell, and exchange virtual items from the Counter-Strike universe. Operating 24/7 with integrated fraud detection and seamless user onboarding, the platform connects players, collectors, and esports fans globally. It merges the speed and complexity of a fintech service with the community dynamics of a live gaming ecosystem.
Sergey Vorobyev, Chief Business Development Officer at CS.MONEY, is not an engineer, but his role has been pivotal in ensuring the organisation remains agile and resilient in the face of this technical volatility. Sergey brings decades of expertise in leadership, organisational design, and business strategy, as well as his deep commitment to the Teaming methodology rooted in Harvard research. In this conversation, Sergey shares how he applied these principles inside a tech company working under constant threat of external system failure.
Q: Sergey, CS.MONEY operates in an environment where technical instability is almost guaranteed, especially when relying on the Steam API. How did you approach building resilience around that?
A: Yes, that’s one of the realities we accepted early on. Steam’s API is central to what we do, but it is famously unstable. There are rate limits, random outages, latency issues, and none of them are within our control. So the obvious question for us was not just how to engineer our systems around that instability, but how to structure the people side of the business to be just as resilient.
What I saw when I arrived was that the real vulnerability wasn’t just technical. The bottleneck was in how quickly people could coordinate, make decisions, and act when things started to wobble. We were reacting to issues instead of anticipating them. That’s where my experience with Teaming came in. If we couldn’t change the environment, we could certainly change ourselves. We could become faster, more alert, more structured in our internal responses to learn faster than competitors.
Q: You’ve implemented the Teaming methodology within CS.MONEY. How does that apply to dealing with technical instability?
A: For me, Teaming is fundamentally about preparation. It’s not about having a perfect solution to every problem. It’s about building an organisation that doesn’t freeze when reality throws something unexpected at you. In the context of CS.MONEY, that meant creating an internal reflex system, a kind of organisational muscle memory.
We did that by embedding rituals and protocols that clarified how teams responded to emerging risks. It wasn’t enough to have technical monitoring. We needed to ensure that when a signal was detected, whether from a system alert, user feedback, or even an engineer’s gut feeling, there was a shared understanding of what should happen next. Who needs to be informed, what actions can be taken immediately, what escalation pathways exist. Everyone needed to be aware of the playbook, even if the specific play wasn’t yet obvious.
Q: Can you give an example of how that worked in practice?
A: Absolutely. There was a period where the Steam API was particularly volatile, and we noticed small but consistent spikes in transaction failures. Rather than waiting for a full-scale outage, we built a situational awareness loop. This meant that support teams, product teams, and engineering were in constant communication, not just formally, but with lightweight signals that helped us track anomalies as they developed.
For instance, if customer support started getting complaints about delayed trades, they didn’t just file a report. That triggered a chain of updates to engineering, who would then look at the system metrics in real-time. But more than that, support knew they had the authority to flag these issues without needing managerial approval. That cultural shift – empowering people to act without hesitation – was critical.
Q: That sounds like a shift from rigid hierarchies to more fluid, empowered teams.
A: Precisely. In situations where seconds or minutes matter, you cannot afford rigid hierarchies. The person who notices a problem should not have to wait for someone else to validate it before acting. We worked hard to create a structure where roles were fluid in crisis moments, but boundaries were still respected. People knew what decisions they could make themselves, what required consultation, and when escalation was necessary.
This is what I mean when I talk about a living organisation. It’s not chaos, and it’s not overly rigid. It’s an ecosystem where the system’s health is everyone’s responsibility.
Q: Many organisations struggle with accountability when things go wrong. How did you ensure people felt safe taking action in high-pressure situations?
A: That’s the psychological side of Teaming. We explicitly designed the culture to reward attentiveness and initiative. We said, if you see something that doesn’t feel right, flag it immediately. Even if it turns out to be nothing, it’s still a success because the system is working as intended.
We held debriefs after every major disruption, not to find fault but to understand the sequence of events. What did we catch early? What did we miss? And most importantly, how do we make it easier next time? That practice reinforces the idea that taking action is always preferable to waiting for certainty.
Q: What’s the biggest misconception you see in tech teams when dealing with external technical dependencies like the Steam API?
A: The biggest misconception is that you can engineer your way out of it entirely. People believe that with enough technical safeguards, you can neutralise instability. But there will always be a moment when a person has to interpret a situation and decide how to proceed. If your organisation isn’t structured to enable that person to act quickly, all the redundancy in the world won’t help.
Resilience isn’t just in the code. It’s in how people think together, how they communicate under pressure, and whether they feel empowered to make decisions when it counts.
Q: Has this approach changed the overall culture at CS.MONEY?
A: It has. There is a sense of readiness now that didn’t exist before. People aren’t caught off guard when things go wrong. There’s an expectation that volatility is part of our world, and we’re prepared for it. That shifts the mindset from fear to focus. You’re not worried about the fact that the system might fail. You’re focused on what to do when it does.
And that builds confidence, not just in the technical team but across the whole organisation. Everyone understands that maintaining the health of the system is a shared responsibility.
Q: What advice would you give to other tech leaders dealing with unpredictable systems?
A: I would say, treat your organisation like a system that needs redundancy and adaptability just as much as your infrastructure does. Build rituals that create alignment, protocols that remove hesitation, and a culture where it’s safe to flag issues early.
You won’t ever eliminate instability entirely, but you can build a company that thrives within it. And in the long run, that’s what defines whether you stay in the game or not.
