Burgeoning Crypto and Blockchain Startups Capitalize on Virtual Hiring Event
The First-of-its-Kind Webinar Attracted Thousands of Crypto Enthusiasts Interested in Careers in the Emerging Multi-Trillion Dollar Blockchain Sector
From NBA star Steph Curry dropping a cool $180,000 on a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) to tech giant Elon Musk’s revelation of SpaceX’s upcoming dogecoin-funded cubesat moon mission, the blockchain sector has evolved into big business — and business is booming.
With career interest in cryptocurrency and blockchain at unprecedented levels, and sector financing already up a staggering 384 percent through Q3 compared to 2020, Hirect recently organized a first-of-its-kind virtual hiring event for startups in the crypto and blockchain space.
“The interest in crypto, blockchain, NFTs, and the larger DeFi movement has absolutely shifted from the shadows to societal mainstream,” said Brady Xu, CEO of Hirect U.S., which currently has more than 1.5 million global users on its platform. “Look no further than Bitcoin and Ethereum recently surpassing record values or the hugely popular NFT.NYC conference earlier this month. Even municipal leaders of major cities like New York and Miami are jumping onboard.”
The event, NFTs to Crypto: The Future of Blockchain, was hosted by crypto YouTuber Sam Hoesch on his highly popular channel My Financial Friend. More than 12,000 total viewers logged on from around the world to see Hoesch share his insights and perspectives on the latest trends and projections for cryptocurrency, NFTs, and other digital assets along with leaders from six related startups.
“I think this is going to be a great opportunity for a lot of people who want to get into the crypto space,” said Hoesch during the webinar. “It’s still a relatively new area so I know a lot of people, myself included, I don’t even know all the opportunities there are in crypto and what people are hiring for, what kind of positions there are.”
He added, “I’m sure there are way more jobs and different types of jobs than what you would typically consider in crypto — it’s not just all coders. That’s why I wanted to bring on some different people on the channel today, that’s why Hirect is helping because they work with all these different companies.”
Through these ‘fireside chats,’ each leader had an opportunity to illuminate projects and initiatives they’re pioneering in the space, where they see the sector going, highlight specific positions or roles they’re looking to fill, and answer real-time audience questions from the more than 250 engagements in the chat. The startups included:
- Masha Boone: Vice President of People at Rarible (1:01:42–1:12:54)
- Lesley Baughman: Head of People at Horizen Labs (29:40–44:26)
- Pryce Adade-Yebesi: Co-founder of Utopia Labs (15:55–29:15)
- Boomer Saraga: Co-founder and CEO of Khelp Crypto (52:40–1:01:14)
- Bryan Hernandez, President and Co-founder of Structure (5:41–15:36) and
- Paul Pierre and Spencer Yip, CTO and CPO of Conductive Research (1:13:16–1:23:00)
Throughout the 90-minute webinar, attendees could access a list of approximately 100 job opportunities through Hirect’s free mobile platform, including many positions and their salary ranges from the six participating startups. Through Hirect, attendees could chat directly with these leaders, share their qualifications, and even arrange interviews.
“As a startup ourselves, we understand the challenges and pressures these young businesses face in a rapidly growing and highly competitive market,” added Xu. “We were delighted to give these startups a platform to promote their innovative work and help connect them with motivated talent to drive their businesses forward.”
According to Boone, Rarible is the leading marketplace for creating, selling, buying, and creating NFTs in industries like music, art, entertainment, sports, gaming, and fashion.
“We had rapper French Montana; he launched on our platform, he broke into the metaverse. They launched a 3001 limited edition wearable sneaker.”
What’s Next for Rarible:
They just launched their mobile app and announced the integration of Flow, a blockchain that helps create a more streamlined and efficient experience.
“We really believe the future is that multi-entry point where it’s accessible for everyone, not only the folks who are crypto-savvy.”
On Hiring in the Blockchain Sector:
Boone says as the industry continues to become more borderless, digital, and transparent, so too will the job search. A reflection of the growing industry, Rarible has quadrupled in size in the last four months.
“We’re looking for talent and skill, of course engineering talent. Marketing in our industry is really in need for folks right now as we are aiming to go mainstream. We’re really building out our marketing and communications team and I posted a couple of roles on Hirect.”
She added, “We’re just looking for folks who want to be a part of it [the blockchain sector] and are ready to move fast and make an impact.”
According to Baughman, Horizen Labs builds products and services on the Horizen public blockchain, enabling any user and enterprise to build their own blockchain.
What’s Next for Horizen Labs:
They just released Zendoo on Testnet, Horizen’s sidechain solution.
On Hiring in the Blockchain Sector:
Baughman believes as crypto and blockchain continue to become more mainstream, it’s essential recruiters be able to adjust quickly, listen to candidates, and nurture those relationships. Although they have offices in Milan and New York City, they operate with a remote-first mindset to attract talent, with team members spread out across the U.S., Europe, and even Panama.
“What we’ve realized is and what we can benefit from is we can go to where the talent is and we can be flexible, and I think that’s really, really important. Obviously, we’ve all been impacted with the coronavirus over the past two years, and people had to adjust to work remotely. Where we didn’t find ourselves off the mark was because our team was already operating in that capacity.”
She added, “Age is just a number — there are no age restrictions. It’s never too late to join the industry.”
According to Adade-Yebesi, Utopia Labs is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) tooling startup.
“We’re building a lot of the stack to help these organizations scale, and right now what that looks like for us is we’re building out a better suite of tools to help manage their payments and contributors. But we’re really excited to see how this space evolves as this new technology continues to grow and find more ways we can support these amazing organizations.”
What’s Next for Utopia Labs:
A projected blurring of lines between Web3 and Web2 businesses as more and more people see the benefits in the space.
On Hiring in the Blockchain Sector:
Adade-Yebesi says in addition to front and back-end engineers, Utopia is looking for people not only with experience building things, but with positive attitudes and a love for customer support.
“Our customers were our early backers so we have a lot of respect for everyone in the space. It’s a very personal thing to work in this space. The people who join us, we’d love for them to have the lens for that real deep customer empathy in what we’re building.”
According to Saraga, Khelp Crypto is a dual-pronged, full-suite, digital asset platform. Their core business entity, Khelp Financial, offers personalized crypto asset management to private households and businesses. Their other entity, Khelp Digital Assets, launches, designs, and mints NFTs for professional athletes and entertainers.
“The two come together in the sense that we’re trying to facilitate global adoption of digital assets and build client relationships across the board.”
What’s Next for Khelp Crypto:
Pending registration with Florida and Georgia to become a Registered Investment Advisor, with the goal to become registered throughout the east coast and eventually expand nationally.
On Hiring in the Blockchain Sector:
Saraga, currently part of a three-man team, says in the next 24 months they anticipate a bevy of job opportunities at Khelp, from operations, to marketing, to human resources.
“You don’t necessarily need the crypto background. There are people with credentialed backgrounds in banking and tech consulting who can hit the ground running and provide experience and contribute their share to us right off the bat. Then there are those who don’t necessarily have the experience but have gotten engulfed in the space, understand how to farm, how to cross chain, how to use different networks. So I think there are different skill sets available for everybody and really it’s about the passion and taking initiative with us.”
According to Hernandez, Structure is a mobile-first trading application for both traditional assets, such as stocks, commodities, bonds, and ETFs, as well as crypto. For assets not natively blockchain (think Apple stock), they can help tokenize those to withdraw to a blockchain of your choice.
“Today I think the total value of crypto assets is only about half a percent of the total worldwide value of all assets and I think that has a lot of room to grow. So we believe we need easy to use products that are accessible to every day people to participate in that.”
What’s Next for Structure:
The release of their product publicly (it’s currently in private beta). Interested users can sign up for early access on their website.
On Hiring in the Blockchain Sector:
“Fundamentally, we believe that crypto and DeFi, what we’re participating in is one of the most exciting developments that we’re going to see in our lifetime. I think the development in decentralized finance is going to be one of the biggest wealth transfers in history and if you want to be part of that story, and I don’t care what your skill set is, I think we can probably find an interesting position for you.”
He added, “We’re talking engineers, designers, scientists, writers — even if you just like to trade and gamble on stocks, if you’re passionate about where this industry is going, there’s certainly a lot of work to be done.”
According to Pierre, Conductive Research’s mission is to make it seamless for developers to innovate their product on web feed technologies.
“What we see is people are rebuilding the same thing over and over, duct taping a bunch of open sources together. So we’re aiming to do what Shopify did for e-commerce for the average web developer.”
What’s Next for Conductive Research:
Hyperperk, a token gamification launchpad for video games or anyone with a brand, and an analytics platform, Frame. They hope to launch these publicly in Q1 next year.
On Hiring in the Blockchain Sector:
In addition to analysts and back-end and front-end engineers, Conductive Research is interested in people who want to both build and learn.
“In general, we’re looking for people who are crypto-curious, people who like to learn.”
Interested in seeing what jobs are available with these six startups and others like them? Download Hirect on the App Store or on Google Play.
