diff --git a/cmd/kubeadm/app/phases/bootstraptoken/node/token.go b/cmd/kubeadm/app/phases/bootstraptoken/node/token.go
index 539d7ef623c..7b13bbdd9ea 100644
--- a/cmd/kubeadm/app/phases/bootstraptoken/node/token.go
+++ b/cmd/kubeadm/app/phases/bootstraptoken/node/token.go
@@ -22,10 +22,12 @@ import (
 	"github.com/pkg/errors"
 
 	metav1 "k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/apis/meta/v1"
+	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/wait"
 	clientset "k8s.io/client-go/kubernetes"
 	bootstraputil "k8s.io/cluster-bootstrap/token/util"
 
 	bootstraptokenv1 "k8s.io/kubernetes/cmd/kubeadm/app/apis/bootstraptoken/v1"
+	kubeadmconstants "k8s.io/kubernetes/cmd/kubeadm/app/constants"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/apiclient"
 )
 
@@ -46,15 +48,21 @@ func UpdateOrCreateTokens(client clientset.Interface, failIfExists bool, tokens
 		}
 
 		updatedOrNewSecret := bootstraptokenv1.BootstrapTokenToSecret(&token)
-		// Try to create or update the token with an exponential backoff
-		err = apiclient.TryRunCommand(func() error {
-			if err := apiclient.CreateOrUpdateSecret(client, updatedOrNewSecret); err != nil {
-				return errors.Wrapf(err, "failed to create or update bootstrap token with name %s", secretName)
-			}
-			return nil
-		}, 5)
+
+		var lastError error
+		err = wait.PollUntilContextTimeout(
+			context.Background(),
+			kubeadmconstants.APICallRetryInterval,
+			kubeadmconstants.APICallWithWriteTimeout,
+			true, func(_ context.Context) (bool, error) {
+				if err := apiclient.CreateOrUpdateSecret(client, updatedOrNewSecret); err != nil {
+					lastError = errors.Wrapf(err, "failed to create or update bootstrap token with name %s", secretName)
+					return false, nil
+				}
+				return true, nil
+			})
 		if err != nil {
-			return err
+			return lastError
 		}
 	}
 	return nil
diff --git a/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/apiclient/wait.go b/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/apiclient/wait.go
index 7808afdb214..f7939dddc3a 100644
--- a/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/apiclient/wait.go
+++ b/cmd/kubeadm/app/util/apiclient/wait.go
@@ -280,21 +280,3 @@ func getStaticPodSingleHash(client clientset.Interface, nodeName string, compone
 	staticPodHash := staticPod.Annotations["kubernetes.io/config.hash"]
 	return staticPodHash, nil
 }
-
-// TryRunCommand runs a function a maximum of failureThreshold times, and retries on error. If failureThreshold is hit; the last error is returned
-func TryRunCommand(f func() error, failureThreshold int) error {
-	backoff := wait.Backoff{
-		Duration: 5 * time.Second,
-		Factor:   2, // double the timeout for every failure
-		Steps:    failureThreshold,
-	}
-	return wait.ExponentialBackoff(backoff, func() (bool, error) {
-		err := f()
-		if err != nil {
-			// Retry until the timeout
-			return false, nil
-		}
-		// The last f() call was a success, return cleanly
-		return true, nil
-	})
-}