Nothing in this article constitutes or should be taken as financial advice and should be treated as for illustrative and educational purposes only. Always do your own research.
This morning I had the pleasure of speaking at a Working in Web3 (non-technical roles) panel hosted by our friends over at MyBFF. Judging by the number of people who tuned in and the follow-up messages, turns out this is a hot topic, so it seemed only fitting to continue the conversation in this weekly column. But let’s start from the beginning…
Web3 space is still very new so finding a job the old school way via a website and a resume may prove tricky, mainly because I can count the number of web3 dedicated job sites on one hand. One, therefore, needs to get a little creative when looking for their break into web3. The upside of not having the scale or the structure, however, is the lower levels of competition compared to web2. But before you jump into web3 headfirst, I would encourage you to start small, perhaps as a side hustle or a part-time role, the reason being that anything new carries with it a certain level of risk until it scales – this is true for both individual projects and the ecosystem as a whole.
If you are ready to dip your toe, here are some of my observations and recommendations after spending the last few months immersed in the space.
Types of jobs
Remember when we first spoke of the opportunities in web3? This new web3 ecosystem is not just for engineers and developers, slowly but surely as it grows the supporting roles grow too. If you are reading this, I would encourage you to gain a basic understanding of web3 and think about what opportunities it may create for your industry.
Legal, tax and accounting
For personal tax filings, intellectual property legal questions or treasury management of the freshly acquired eth from NFT sales, these traditional roles are in high demand. As of 2021, a report by Triple A estimated global crypto ownership rates at an average of 3.9%, with over 300 million crypto users worldwide. And over 18,000 businesses are already accepting cryptocurrency payments. Most of these users will have to file taxes, so if you are a tax accountant with mild curiosity in the crypto space, you ought to start paying more attention.
Marketing
As more web2 brands will start experimenting in web3, reaching the right audiences and ability to clearly communicate brand messages in web3 language will become hugely important. While many normal marketing principles will still apply (surprise and delight!), some nuances will be different given the main differentiators of web3 being decentralisation, ownership structures and community focus.
Community and events
Discord* moderators, community managers and coordinators are the emerging hot jobs in web3 at the moment. The importance of these roles in a space where community is king (or queen), should not be underestimated. The founder may set the tone, but it is your community managers who will be cultivating and fostering the community daily.
Copywriters and content
Onboarding and education of new joiners will be a big part of the space for next couple of years, as we struggle through clunky wallets and dodge endless scam attempts, patiently waiting for the infrastructure to mature. So, if you are good at writing papers, you are hot property in the job market – be it a white paper, lite paper, technical or any other kind of paper.
Events
Just for fun, go and check every NFT project’s roadmap… and you might find the words like ‘IRL, events, meet-ups and conference’ used generously throughout. So, if you are in events and you understand the workings of a web3 based community, how experiential and perks can be attached to NFTs, and what TokenProof is (or at least one of these three things I mentioned), you are already three steps ahead of everyone else in your industry. You’r welcome.
Finding opportunities
This largely depends on where and what you want to do. In the NFT space, your best bet will be joining a community that you are aligned with or interested in, most of the discords* are not tokengated (i.e. don’t require you to own an NFT), often the jobs are advertised within the discord* itself or, if you are particularly active as a member, you might be approached to do a moderator role by the founders. For an NFT project, recruiting from inside the community makes sense, as the candidate would already understand the project and the needs of their community. Again, at this early stage in the cycle, this tends to happen organically. Because the NFT space moves fast and the projects operate essentially as start-ups, things happen quickly, and teams are small and agile (and often under-resourced).
On the other hand, finding a job at a centralised crypto exchange for example is one of the more traditional routes and is a halfway point to web3 – here, traditional roles are likely to be replicated and the structures will be like that of a traditional organisation (e.g., finance, marketing, hr departments etc) – the roles will be more likely to be advertised on LinkedIn and traditional job sites.
Finally, networking still is and will remain an integral part of building a career be it IRL, web2 or web3. Community meetups, educational events and conferences can be very effective, particularly this early in web3 when the ecosystem is small and the competition for roles is not as fierce.
*think instant messenger for web3 projects… check out the AllBright discord here.
Want to learn more about jobs in web3? Tweet us @liyadashkina and @WeAreAllbright