Crypto Jobs: The Top 5 Hottest Positions in the New Digital Frontier

Crypto jobs: According to recruitment experts, here are the most in-demand jobs in the crypto space.

Neil Dundon is the founder of Crypto Recruit. He started the world’s first specialist recruiting agency for crypto in 2017. He says, “Before crypto was even a thing, in the middle of the last Bull Run, nobody was thinking about recruitment! But we wanted to get ahead of the curve in terms of providing talent for this space, because we knew it was going to be big. We do all the heavy lifting of trying to find talent in the tightest talent squeeze of our time. The skills required to fill positions are very rare. It is an unusual situation where demand is far outweighing supply. Put it this way, developers are becoming the new Wall Street.”

The top five hottest crypto jobs

Hottest job 1 – Developer

Skills: Smart contracts engineers and blockchain engineers with Solidity and Solana experience.

Salary to expect: Up to $250k + Tokens/Equity

Hottest job 2 – Marketing

Skills: Business to consumer marketing, preferably with crypto experience and an understanding of this audience.

Salary to expect: Up to $250k + Tokens/Equity 

Hottest job 3 – Community Manager

Skills: Experience setting up Discord servers

Salary to expect: $70k to $120k depending on experience

Hottest job 4 – CTO

Skills: Blockchain experience. Have managed a growth business before

Salary to expect: $200k to $400k + Tokens/Equity

Hottest job 5 – Product Manager

Skills: Experience managing B to C technical products

Salary to expect: $120k to $250k + Tokens/Equity

Crypto jobs outlook

Dundon says that demand changes quickly depending on where the Crypto market is at in its growth cycle. But, over the past year and a half, the crypto job market has accelerated. “The industry is hiring even more than the tech sector at the moment. The hiring runs across all disciplines in the crypto space. Recruiting jobs in this space is an extension of the normal market. Except, there’s a premium on top of because of demand, which is spread across the positions of developers, marketers, product managers, and operations.

“We are doing a lot of work in blockchain gaming as well. There’s a lot of money flowing in into that space. DeFi is still hiring – there are new products coming up all the time, across all the different chains. It is very buoyant at the moment. I’m currently working with one of the biggest crypto companies in the world that are planning on hiring 800 new people before next July.”

The recruitment company conducted a survey recently, asking people who’ve moved over to crypto from the traditional world what they thought about it. “Zero people go back once they enter this space. There’s so much happening, it’s very mentally stimulating.

Crypto jobs: Developers are king

Developers are calling the shots now. “These platforms are nothing without developers. It’s software and algorithms that control decision-making in crypto. That’s attractive, especially to the younger generation. In the crypto space, all the power around decision-making is being taken from the traditional powers that be, and it is being put into code. The developers are calling the shots and they’re the ones that are commanding the highest percentage increase in salary.”

In such a new industry, where are people learning their skills? On the job. “A lot of the code base for crypto is rooted in traditional coding. For example, Ethereum code (called Solidity) is very similar to JavaScript. Developers have to learn on the job.”

Some coders trying to move from the traditional space into the crypto space often take on side projects after hours, to build up their skills. This doesn’t always have the desired outcome. Says Dundon, “They add that to their resume, and say, ‘hey I have done this!’ But what the companies really want are coders who have built actual commercial Ethereum smart contracts. There’s a big danger that if they do it wrong, the contracts can get hacked. You hear about this in the news all the time.”

Everyone is going through a huge education phase. “There are a lot of Street types who want to come into the crypto space – from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan’s. Every second profile is someone from traditional finance wanting to come into this space. Most of them don’t have crypto knowledge. They might have bought a Bitcoin a few years ago. So they think they know crypto!”

Where Demand is Coming From

We used to do most of our work in San Francisco, New York, Dallas, and Miami before. But there’s more work in Asia now – Hong Kong, Singapore. We work in the UK, Spain, France, and of course, London. The demand tracks the traditional finance centers across the world.

Crypto Recruit is based in Sydney, Australia. “There’s not a huge amount happening in terms of projects in the crypto space in Australia, although some of the most successful projects have come out of Australia, Synthetix Protocol is one, Illuvium a big blockchain game is another. Globally, there are thousands of projects now. And, there’s a lot of marketing happening because a lot of money is coming into the industry. Marketers and community managers with softer skills are needed to promote new platforms.

“The companies that reach out to us typically want the best of the best. They are not looking for just immediate grads. They want people with experience.”

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