Despite the threat of a global recession and a year-long (and counting) downturn in the crypto markets, the blockchain space is still thriving. While some Web3 companies have been forced to scale back on their hiring, others are actively expanding their workforces.
There’s a shortage of top talent in the blockchain space, so experienced professionals are highly in-demand, as well as those qualified for more junior roles. There are thousands of job opportunities at popular blockchain organisations, from DAOs and informal groups, through startups and small companies, to giants like Coinbase and Binance.
Below we survey some of the best-known organisations in the blockchain space, and give an overview of the positions they’re currently looking to fill.
Coinbase was launched back in 2012, and is one of the oldest crypto exchanges still in operation. In fact – unlike many of its contemporaries (most notably Mt Gox) – it has gone from strength to strength and is now a household name in the crypto space and a publicly-listed company.
Coinbase has made it its mission to enable anyone to buy, sell, store, send and receive bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies – quickly, easily and securely. The platform now has an incredible 90 million users across 100 countries, and caters to institutional investors as well as retail traders. If you’ve ever bought crypto, there’s a good chance you’ve used Coinbase. It also offers numerous other services, including NFT marketplaces, DeFi integrations, and its own wallet.
Coinbase is a huge organisation, and despite a round of layoffs as Crypto Winter set in, it’s still hiring and has almost 100 vacancies at the time of writing. They’re looking for self-starters who are confident with a high level of responsibility (but then, that’s likely to be true for most crypto companies). It’s a remote-first organisation, and there are vacancies across every area of the business – engineering, marketing and comms, customer service, finance and accounting, legal and compliance, and risk and fraud. You’ll find intern (or rather, ‘extern’) positions as well as senior roles, so there should be something for everyone, no matter what your expertise or level.
Paxful is a leading peer-to-peer platform for buying and selling crypto, including BTC, ETH and USDT. The organisation was started with the aim of providing crypto-related financial services to the billions of unbanked and underbanked people in the world. Today, it boasts a user base of 10 million, and supports a remarkable 350+ payment methods, meaning it’s perfectly suited for those who aren’t included in the traditional financial system.
Paxful offers a dedicated multi-platform wallet as part of its service, which is integrated with the peer-to-peer marketplace.
Paxful has more than 200 employees in four offices around the world, in Talinn, New York, Hong Kong and Manila. Aside from competitive pay they offer health, growth and development plans, and some other great perks like company-wide paid vacations.
At the time of writing, there are no open vacancies, but check back periodically.
Another absolute powerhouse and household name of the crypto space, Gemini was founded by the Winkelvoss Twins (of Facebook fame, and also enormous bitcoin holders). The platform prioritises simplicity and security, and is for both individuals and institutions.
Unlike many other crypto organisations, including exchanges, Gemini has taken a regulation-first approach. It’s a New York trust company regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS). This means they’re subject to some stringent regulation, including capital reserve requirements and banking compliance standards. In short, they made the decision to tread carefully in the interests of staying on the right side of any future regulation.
Gemini have offices in major cities around the world, but also support remote working. Like other big crypto (and tech) companies, they offer employees lots of perks.
At present there are over 30 roles. A third are in software engineering (a common theme), for both senior and more junior roles, but the vacancies span the full spectrum of positions – marketing, people, support, security and more. There’s also a dedicated internships page for recent grads and those seeking to make a career change.
BlockFi is a crypto wealth management app. The idea behind this and similar ‘CeDeFi’ apps (there are many) is that they allow users to generate income from their holdings. Instead of selling crypto when you want cash, you can borrow funds against your digital assets while continuing to hold them. BlockFi also enables low-cost trading for over 40 different assets.
BlockFi is one of the best-known organisations of its type (and for the right reasons, unlike the collapsed Celsius). Customers can earn up to 10%, with interest accruing daily, and the team has worked hard to make the UX as frictionless and straightforward as possible.
BlockFi came in for some criticism when the crypto crash accelerated in June, laying off 20% of its employees. Despite this, they’re hiring in significant numbers now (the collapse of some of their competition might have something to do with it). It’s a big, global and diverse team.
There’s a very large number of software engineering roles, across a wide range of departments, including their mobile platform, institutional trading platform, core banking platform, fraud, and other groups. Python and Golang are the most common languages required. They’re also looking for data scientist and portfolio management experts. At the time of writing, there is (unusually) nothing in the way of marketing, communications, HR, compliance, etc – but as ever, check back if you’re looking for these vacancies.
Palm is an Ethereum-based NFT ecosystem that has built a creative studio along with some big names from the world of digital and physical art and entertainment. The ecosystem is hosted on an Ethereum-compatible sidechain, enabling fast finality and low gas costs for creators and users, and has attracted more than 3 million NFTs.
Palm has some impressive partners and events under its belt, including ‘The Currency’, created with Damien Hirst, probably the best-known and most successful British artist, as well as delivering NFT experiences for corporations including Universal Music Group, Warner Bros, and DC.
At present there are a handful of roles being advertised, all in software engineering and all remote. You can also make a general application if you like the look of Palm but don’t see a role you might fit.
Like Coinbase, FTX hardly needs any introduction. The exchange was founded by CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and CTO Gary Wang in 2019, who have built it into an absolute behemoth of the crypto space. Billed as ‘a cryptocurrency exchange built by traders, for traders’, FTX provides far more than just the ability to buy and sell crypto, also offering derivatives, options, volatility products and leveraged tokens.
Bankman-Fried (known as ‘SBF’ in the crypto space) wanted to build a platform that was robust enough to attract professional trading firms, but simultaneously easy and intuitive enough for first-time users. He seems to have struck the right balance, because FTX now has millions of users and generated revenues of over $1 billion in 2021. The exchange is regulated by the Hong Kong financial authority.
FTX amassed a huge warchest of cash in the bull run, and when the crypto downturn inevitably took place, they started going shopping – buying up companies that were in trouble and picking up talent who had been laid off from other organisations that had hired aggressively in the good times but hadn’t planned as well for the bad times.
Right now, FTX has comparatively few opportunities, having filled many of their vacancies by grabbing newly-redundant employees from other major exchanges that needed to trim their costs at the start of the year. However, there are still a number of open roles in a variety of positions. There are plenty of software engineering roles, as ever – currently frontend and full stack developers. You’ll also find marketing and content, and customer services opportunities. These roles are based in the Bahamas, which may or may not be a problem for applicants.
Something a little bit different to a ‘pure’ crypto company, SoFi is a new banking and finance app that provides an all-in-one money management experience, offering banking, investing, loans and more. You can invest in popular shares and ETFs, and they have enthusiastically embraced crypto, too, with the app supporting 30 different digital assets.
SoFi doesn’t provide a wallet, instead working with partners to provide custody (including Coinbase). There is a strong emphasis on security, but one of the downsides is that you can’t transfer your coins out of the app. As well as the various investment services and crypto offerings, they have created a comprehensive set of guides to crypto and DeFi, and it’s fair to assume they will be adding to this side of the business in the future.
SoFi is more TradFi than DeFi, but if you’re looking for a job with a forward-thinking company from the conventional financial sector, this is a good place to start. There are over 60 vacancies in 15 locations, with around a third in engineering but others across every area of the business – marketing, design, content, accounting, risk, and more. Check back for specific crypto roles if that interests you.
Pinata is an NFT platform that prioritises accessibility and facilitates the process of managing, sharing and monetising media for artists and creatives. Users can build on any blockchain, there are extensive toolkits, APIs, SDKs, and gateways, and built-in support for IPFS. The organisation’s ‘submarine’ functionality enables users to restrict their content and give viewing permission only to certain people – for example via NFT ownership or physical location.
Pinata’s team is fully remote, growing, and based all around the world. There are roles in engineering (mainly), as well as marketing and product.
Another giant of the Web3 landscape that needs no introduction, Binance was founded by Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, a serial entrepreneur who had already enjoyed a number of successes before launching a new crypto exchange. Binance went live in July 2017 and within six months was the largest digital asset exchange in the world by trading volumes.
The platform has an incredible 120 million registered users, enables customers to buy, trade and hold over 350 different cryptos, and processes over a million transactions per second. It also has one of the lowest trading fees of 0.1%, with free BTC trading. As well as launching its own app for trading on the go, Binance has immersed itself in almost every aspect of the wider crypto space – launching its own blockchains, Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain (an EVM compatible chain for smart contract applications); maintaining a decentralised wallet, the TrustWallet; getting in on the NFT scene; and running a launchpad, research arm, an active charity wing, and an education hub.
There is, quite simply, a staggering amount of activity here. Binance is a huge and incredibly impressive organisation, or set of organisations, with many different products – and therefore also some serious staffing needs. Take a deep breath…
Binance has over 6,000 employees spread across more than 100 locations, plus remote staff. There are around 650 vacancies at the time of writing, in 15 different teams. These include almost 200 engineering roles, over 50 in marketing, and over 50 in legal and compliance. There are also internships available. In short, if you’re looking for a job in crypto, you could do worse than start your search at Binance.
Titan is another all-in-one investment management platform that allows users to build a wide-ranging portfolio of managed stocks, real estate, credit, venture capital, crypto and other assets, including private funds. They have some big names behind them and are partnered with Ark Invest, run by Cathy Wood, a notable bitcoin advocate. Like SoFi, they’re making a significant play for crypto-curious customers, and have set up an actively-managed portfolio of digital assets they see as well-positioned for long-term returns, while being relatively uncorrelated with equities. Their aim is to outperform the Bitwise 10 Large Cap Crypto Index on a 3-to-5-year timeframe.
Titan isn’t a regular crypto company, but – again like SoFi – if you have a background in TradFi and are looking to branch out into the crypto world then it might be for you. There are lots of perks, a competitive salary, equity, medical, a stipend for remote work setup, and more. There are vacancies in design, engineering and product, but check back for more, including in their crypto department.
Rift is a decentralised market making protocol, designed to help blockchain projects access liquidity on favourable terms. They started out by pioneering a new form of protocol-owned liquidity for DAOs, and expanded their offering from there, and have attracted over $70 million in liquidity for various DAOs to date. They’re backed by big names from the crypto space, including Pantera Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Hashed, Jump Capital, Defiance Capital, Spartan Group, and others.
If you’re interested in working with Rift, you’ll need to be prepared to go through a three-step application process, starting with an intro call, moving onto a skills assessment, and finishing with an interview with the co-founders to ensure you’re the right fit. At the time of writing there’s just one engineering vacancy, but as ever, check back regularly as the situation can change fast.
Mintable is an Ethereum-based platform that enables users to buy, sell, create and distribute digital files – including music, video, books, and other media – in the form of NFTs. The process is straightforward for non-technical users, and the service supports gasless selling.
One of Mintable’s differences from other similar service is its DAO. Voting power is earned by participating on the platform, with voting rights controlled by NFTs rather than the normal model of using ERC20 tokens. Voters have a unique NFT that can be traded if they want on the secondary market.
Mintable doesn’t have a jobs section on its website, like most other DeFi and crypto organisations, but they still recruit via sites like LinkedIn. There are currently half a dozen vacancies, for a CTO, engineers and developers, but also in sales.
Crypto Gaming United (CGU) is one of the largest and most popular play-to-earn guilds in the world. It has attracted a large user base from developing countries, offering a broad range of services that enable players to earn a meaningful income by participating in P2E games, as well as allowing them to pick up new skills in the blockchain space – including learning the basics of different technologies and trading strategies. The platform supports some of the best-known blockchain games, like Samurai Legends and Axie Infinity, and also holds NFTs and other digital assets in a community treasury, with the intention of growing this value over time.
CGU was bootstrapped by a core team with VC investment, but is not so much a company as a grassroots DAO, with over 6,000 players spread across 25 countries. There are opportunities to earn in various areas, including playing games, lending NFTs, staking any CGU tokens earned, and providing training and education.
Republic is a full-service accelerator and advisory firm for the crypto industry. The outfit was founded in 2017 to act as a strategic partner for Web3 projects, whatever stage they are at. Republic’s wins include helping Avalanche achieve its current position, by providing advice on its tokenomics, helping it close a $40 million public token sale and VC raises, and facilitating a listing on Binance. They have also had a hand in starting major projects like Voyager and DappRadar.
To find their current vacancies, you’ll need to check their LinkedIn entry (linked from the site). For a change, you won’t find lots of developer jobs. As an accelerator and advisory service, they’re looking for business dev and economic roles – though you may find the odd engineering spot too. Expect the normal perks of medical, dental, and 401(k).
Salt is another CeDeFi app that specialises in crypto-backed lending. Instead of taking out an unsecured loan based on their credit score, users can borrow against crypto collateral. This isn’t a decentralised lending platform like Aave, and customers will need to sign up and complete KYC, before selecting from business or personal loan types, and depositing crypto to the platform to be custodied by SALT. The company has worked hard to reduce the frictions inherent in a TradFi-style model, and it’s generally possible to go from registration to completed loan in 48 hours or so.
SALT is the native token of the platform, and can be used to reduce interest on loans, and to pay interest and fees. SALT can also be used as a collateral type (up to 20 percent of a loan).
The platform also offers StackWise, which enables users to put aside a percentage of every monthly pay cheque as BTC, ETH or USDC crypto rewards.
SALT runs a remote workforce, and was voted one of the best remote-first crypto companies to work for in 2021 and 2022. Benefits include a high degree of flexibility and lots of time with other team members to help build rapport. There are currently software engineering roles, or you can make a general application.
DappRadar is ‘the world’s dApp store’: a complete solution for finding, tracking and trading everything in the Web3 world, including DeFi, NFT and GameFi projects across multiple different blockchains. They’re big on data, aiming to give users everything they need to identify good projects and trade successfully, and list over 12,000 dApps and 2,000 NFT collections. You can buy and sell assets from within the DappRadar Portfolio. Holding the RADAR token gives you a say in the governance of the platform, including voting on listings and other initiatives, and development decisions for the product. RADAR also gives holders access to premium features, and the ability to earn through staking.
There are lots of good reasons to work at DappRadar, aside from the competitive salary and equity programme for all employees. You’ll get a personal learning budget, internal and external training, and the option of working remotely. There are currently engineering positions, both on-location and remote.
Demand.io builds applications that empower communities of consumers, enabling e-commerce to work better for all participants. The company’s core products, including SimplyCodes, Knoji and Favely, crowdsource reviews and use gamification to give users access to information, helping to drive sales and enable customers to make better decisions.
Demand.io operates with a distributed and global team, but the leadership is based in their LA offices. It’s an equity partnership, and all profits are shared with core team members – an attractive and unusual model. There are currently vacancies in Engineering, Product and Marketing.
ENS might be the undisputed champion in the decentralised naming space, but there are plenty of other organisations looking to build on the idea of blockchain-based identity. Unstoppable Domains is one of the best-known dApps of its kind, with a broadly similar concept to ENS but more wide-ranging functionality. Users can buy NFTs that represent a name for their crypto wallet, a Web3 identity, and a decentralised website domain. They can build a digital identity profile, which can include verified social accounts, an NFT avatar, and more. To date, around 3 million domains have been registered with Unstoppable.
Unstoppable Domains is an alternative to ICANN and DNS, and is not a part of the conventional domain naming system. The aim is to create a Web3-native domain service that is fully controlled by the user. Domains are owned permanently, with no renewal fees, ongoing gas costs, or hosting fees (unlike ENS, which requires periodic renewals). Unstoppable has built strong network effect, with over 500 integrations, including Brave and Opera browsers.
Unstoppable is a fully remote team. The company offers employees equity, in-person off-sites, a budget for setting up a home office or finding a co-working space, and lots of other perks. Right now you’ll mainly find engineering roles available.
Launched in 2018, Uniswap was the first truly popular decentralised exchange built on the concept of an Automated Market Maker. AMMs use liquidity pools containing tokens deposited by users, and an algorithm to set the price based on supply and demand – offering a convenient alternative to centralised exchanges.
One of DeFi’s flagship dApps, Uniswap mainly has engineering vacancies, but you’ll also find roles in Design and Product, Growth and Strategy, and Operations.
Despite the downturn, there’s plenty of demand in the Web3 jobs market. Make sure you check both companies’ own sites and their LinkedIn pages, since vacancies aren’t always updated across them at the same time.
If you don’t find what you’re looking for, don’t despair: life moves fast in Web3, so check back regularly, or simply put in an on-spec application. There’s a good chance something will turn up if you have suitable experience.
In the blockchain industry, Layer 2 solutions like zkSync, Optimism, and Arbitrum promise to enhance scalability and reduce transaction costs. However, while some projects thrive with high user engagement, many others struggle with low activity levels, highlighting a disparity in adoption and ecosystem vitality.
Read
LaborX is excited to announce that we’ve successfully integrated Optimism. With this development, freelancers on LaborX now have the ability to accept payments in $OP and explore other tokens within the Optimism ecosystem. In this article, we’ll review the basics of Optimism and take a quick look at the most prominent projects in its ecosystem.
Read
Adapting to decentralised structures and dynamic team configurations, HR teams experience a radical shift in the Web3 space. Human Resources must go beyond their traditional responsibilities as companies adapt to the new work paradigm to guide employees through the complicated waters of increased independence, teamwork, and community input.
Read