We all here know what blockchain technology is, but have you ever thought about building a career in this space? If so, maybe in this article you can find something helpful.
Now we will take a closer look into the fastest growing job market currently - the cryptocurrency market. At the end you will know more about all kinds of blockchain jobs and positions available, where to search for new opportunities and which skills are best paid.
There is no better time to start your exciting crypto career than now. Hundreds of opportunities are waiting for people like you and me to take a part of the creation of the this revolutional technology. ( If we accept it as so). If you haven’t thought about searching and finding a job in blockchain, maybe now is the time to start!
Ofcourse a lot of people may have some fluctuations about getting blockchain jobs for a variety of reasons. First off all, for many of you the concept is very new. Actually to be clear the technology has been around for about 10 years now. But the feeling that this is a ''raw field'' stays...
Another possible scenario is that the artificial intelligence (AI) could take a lead and enter the blockchain technology into the “winter” phase.
But what is blockchain exactly and how it is gonna change the job market in the near future and probably even our life?
Blockchain as technology allows users to transfer funds to each other across a huge network from anywhere in the world (P2P - Peer to peer). The data is securely stored on thousands of different computers. This means transparency, trust and everything is almost impossible to hack.
In the last 7 years (most intensively in the last 2 years) hundreds of cryptocurrencies have been launched and thousands of companies have been formed which offer blockchain services. Digital money was the first successful use of blockchain tech, but there are many others now. Every new blog, exchange or cryptocurrency creates new blockchain jobs. Every new technical improvement creates new skills which need to be taught and learned. We can compare it to a whole new galaxy that needs to be explored.
Let’s have a look at who the new blockchain job-givers are…
Job-givers?
1.Startups:
An Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is mostly used by starting companies to skip the severe and regulated capital-raising process required by venture capitalists or banks. In every ICO campaign, a % of the cryptocurrency is sold to early backers (speculators, called investors) of the project in exchange for legal tender or other cryptocurrencies. (95 % of all ICOs in Etherium)
They are creating platforms and independent Blockchains like EOS, Monero, Qtum, ETHOS and ICON as well as exchanges like Bittrex, Kraken and Binance.Startups can also be wallet providers, news sites, vlogs and educational tools that have been formed to support blockchain projects. At the beginning many of the jobs are unpaid, but offten the value of the tokens holded by the team and the '' early birds'' increases with the time. For example https://angel.co/ has records of 1,600+ crypto startups which have raised more than 3.7 billion $ from ICOs only in America alone.
Legacies:
These are big companies like banks, accountancy firms and law offices. They took a long time to react to the technological developments of Blockchain as tech. They have seen the enormous growth of Bitcoin over the years and now they’re scared. If they don’t work out ways to use the technology, this could put them out of the game! Legacy companies have a lot of power and money. Their high global reputations allow them to hire almost anyone they need. Most are hiring whole teams of experts to help them growing and developing new ways.
Tech firms:
But it’s not just the financial institutions that could use people like developers. Even companies like IBM, MAERSK, Microsoft, Google, Facebook e.t.c. are having possitions for blockchain jobs relating to the implementation of the technology into their business model. These are the companies that have the most to lose if blockchain becomes mainstream. Much of their power and monopol relies on the centralized services they offer. If the popularity of decentralized platforms keeps growing, users won’t want to use centralized ecosystems anymore. ( but this itself is a long way to go, ofcourse). The monopolists use all their resources as for example: to Ban crypto advertising (like Facebook did), or to buy/ invest in new blockchain companies and/ or hire blockchain developers as Google's strategy at the moment. Interesting fact is that IBM is looking currently to fill the availability of over 150 blockchain jobs.
One of the best examples for solution on Blockchain, designed to serve to all businesses is Hyperledger. https://www.hyperledger.org/
Governments:
the cost-cutting, as well time-saving potential of blockchain is huge, probably that's why many national governments have been hiring crypto experts to advise them. https://www.gbaglobal.org/jobs . In Estonia, blockchain tech is being used to make government agencies fairer and more efficient.Soon it could be used also to manage student loan payments. Projects like e-Residency https://e-resident.gov.ee/ are being used to make it the world’s first “digital nation.” Since 2016 China hires blockchain experts to develop its own digital currency. Venezuela has gone even further and created its own cryptocurrency called Petro! more about here: https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/mb59z4/venezuela-cryptocurrency-petro-maduro
BUT ACTUALLY...
Who are the job-seekers?
Techies:
These are tech professionals like software developers and network architects. They are highly experienced in coding languages like Solidity, Java Script, Python and C++. Even for them, cryptocurrency jobs are new space and tough challenge! Developers and engineers will need also their time to become familiar with all new programming languages if they want to take the best of the blockchain world. These jobs are different and require many unusual tasks as research, design and build a new platform as well as offering business ideas and plans for the future.
https://medium.com/devslopes-blog/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-blockchain-developer-7222a3a78f35
Non-techies:
Blockchains are closed network ecosystems and need more than just technical support. Accountants, lawyers, public relations (PR), marketers and much more are also highly appreciated. The blockchain jobs site, Crypto Jobs List, https://cryptojobslist.com/ advertises possitions in marketing, community managment, design and even has listings for meme specialists!
Whether you’re a techie or not, a career in blockchain is a new and exciting opportunity. I am sure, many of the new areas will grow a lot too in the next few year.
Growth Areas
Media: Currently there are only 22M bitcoin wallets and only 5 % of the Americans hold cryptocurrencies.
So we are far from the mass adoption dream, but we could already see dedicated blockchain advertising agencies, PR firms and media outlets in the coming years. Youtube vloggers like Michael Suppo, Ivan on Tech, Crypt0 and Datadash were the first of a new breed of crypto journalists. Blockchain projects will only succeed if they keep with the development of decentralized applications that people want to use. There will be a huge focus on hiring software designers who can build dApps for a mass market. Decentralized AirBNB in the face of LOCKTRIP https://locktrip.com/ and decentralized Universal Wallet as ETHOS https://www.ethos.io/ are MUST-do/have.
Legal compliance: New regulations are comming, better laws are being written worldwide about how cryptocurrencies can be used. The smart_contracts technology itself can guide legal contracts. https://blockgeeks.com/guides/smart-contracts/ . This means that law firms will search crypto experts and crypto businesses will hire legal advisors!
Logistics, supply chains, medical records, even improving the insurance industry. Another potential area where blockchain can have a positive impact is in know you customer (KYC) rules. The interest continues to grow – and will accelerate as more live solutions make it to market. Blockchain offers transparency and data security like no other technology has done it before in our known history.
Trading/Sales:
The NASDAQ has its roots back in 80s (almost 40 years old), but now the coin market is growing 10 times faster! I can say without doubt , that 6 months in CCM is equal to 5+ years in the stock exchange market. Coin exchanges handle tens of millions of crypto trades every day. They need; asset managers, crypto brokers, analysts and ICO advisors.
Th blockchain employee has to deal with many many things at once anyhow.
Now you know a little more about the blockchain jobs and how to prepare yourself for the revolution.
Blockchain Jobs: Supply and Demand
Demand for Blockchain talent has continued to grow exponentially so much so that Blockchain related jobs are second fastest growing skill out of more than 5000 skills in today's labor market. The median income of a Blockchain developer in the US is around $158,000 per year compared to general software developers for who it is $105,000 per year. Some freelance Blockchain developers charge up to $150 per hour. It is rumored that Singapore now has several millionaire Blockchain developers- they were paid in Ethereum and with the price of Ethereum skyrocketing the way it has, several of them have turned millionaires.
What’s the point you ask? Learn Blockchain, if you are the engineer. Learn how to write smart contracts, develop Distributed Applications on Blockchain. There are now 14 job openings for every one Blockchain developer. I am sure you do not need more statistics to get convinced of the value of being a Blockchain developer.
So, big tech firms pay the most, but startups are more popular to work for. Imagine how Mark Zuckerberg’s life would have turned out if he’d taken a job at Microsoft instead of creating his own startup!
Blockchain Career Roadmap
Maybe you need to have a background in computer science and software development first. If you don’t, then better start as soon as possible, because it takes time, a lot of time to be good developer. To be good blockchain developer even longer. To be the best - ofcourse it is a lifelong process. Your open options are:
A blockchain focused degree:
Some of the world’s top universities here: https://www.accounting-degree.org/college-cryptocurrency-blockchain-courses/ have begun offering degrees in blockchain development, include the university where I go.
https://softuni.bg/ ( if you are interested) This is not paid or kind of advertising.
Massive open online courses are very easy to access from everyone, who has internet and motivation to learn. Consensys Academy https://consensys.net/academy/ , Udemy https://www.udemy.com/topic/blockchain/ both and many more offer blockchain courses for beginners and more advanced students and the best of all, they are really affordable. But again, you gonna need some time to understand the solidity fundamentals.
On-the-job training:
Yes, there are also good news: Some companies like IBM offer to teach you for free , if you are lucky enough to get approved to work in a blockchain field. https://www.ibm.com/blogs/ibm-training/blockchain-curriculum/
In fact over 70% of blockchain jobs are being given to employees who already work for the hiring company.
More useful information to keep you ''on the track''
#StayUpdated with the trends:
https://www.reddit.com/ - news
https://github.com/ most used from developers.
You can use also https://www.tradingview.com/ for Technical trading analysis and receiving trading signals
follow your fav. projects on twitter and telegram too.
#BeFlexible - the most important rule. Blockchain careers come in many forms. You need to be part-coder, part-entrepreneur and part-Youtube celebrity or bloger. There are a lot to master, so be prepaired!
#InCryptoWeTrust - If the Etherium protocol doesn’t make you smile, then Blockchain jobs probably aren’t for you. This is one of the greatest technological breakthroughs in history, so enjoy it, respect it and love it... or just die trying...
Final Thoughts…
''Blockchain is here to stay.'' I hear it everywhere and maybe there is a reason to be so. People who hadn’t even heard of Bitcoin six months ago are interested now and start to understand, that this technology has the potential to change every industry in the world. It will become mainstream in the next 5 years, so better ride the wave, than drown down.
Best regards,
The main information for this post comes from:
https://www.bitdegree.org/tutorials/blockchain-jobs/