Web3 Jobs You Won’t Find in Web2: Unleashing Lucrative Opportunities in the Next Digital Frontier
They say ‘technological advancement replaces current jobs with better ones.’
We are starting to see another revolution of that statement through the adoption of LLMs like ChatGPT and Midjourney. The Web3 world also created spin-off specialties from the Web2 and otherwise general digital world.
Here are five interesting, challenging and lucrative jobs exclusive to or especially in demand in Web3 and Crypto.
Blockchain Developer
According to the 2022 Stackoverflow survey, a Blockchain Developer’s average salary was $79,983. This figure is low as respondents from many job types are represented in the survey, including freelance, contract, and part-time workers.
Full-time Blockchain Developers can expect salaries between $100k and $300k generally. During peak market times, private offers to established developers in the industry can reach a $1 million base plus token allocations.
Regardless of the salary, like most pathways, you must genuinely enjoy what you do to do well and deliver the most value.
Blockchain Developers can work on various pathways. These positions can include:
- Smart contract developers
- protocol engineers
- systems-level engineers
- infrastructure engineers
As a Blockchain Developer, you could work on ZK-proof implementations or coding basic smart contracts for dApps. You will need to thrive in an environment with less established precedents and where tooling and best practices are constantly evolving while what you’re building is likely under attack by hackers.
It’s an area not for the faint of heart — but can be very interesting, challenging and rewarding for those who love to work on the cusp of change and progress.
Cryptoeconomist
According to some industry sources, the average salary for an ‘Economist’ is roughly $100k. If Cryptoeconomist wasn’t vague enough, Economist is more open-ended.
In Web3, this title refers to someone engaging in various types of work to help build, design, research or exploit the mathematical infrastructure of Web3 and DeFi platforms.
Some positions could include:
- Protocol researcher
- Financial engineer
- Financial analyst
- Mathematician
Traders and quants can fit into this category in a variety of ways. Either way, where developers and engineers are building the behaviour of platforms, crypto economists are building the models for the behaviour.
Web3 Product Manager
Like most positions in the Crypto world, compensation can depend on the current stage of market cycles. This will likely happen until market saturation and industry stabilization in 4–5 years.
Average salaries for Web3 Product Managers can range from $80k to $300k+
Successful product managers in this space need more than generalized experience facilitating product design and progress in the tech space.
As Web3 constantly evolves, you will need to be highly creative, adaptable, and understand the industry well to keep up with and help advance trends for the industry. All while keeping an eye on and understanding user adoption, controlling for the broader trends in market behaviour.
Smart Contract Auditor
This one gets interesting. The average salary for Smart Contract Auditors is quite high but also difficult to pinpoint. The compensation is likely the highest out of all these listed in the industry.
Many platforms and projects do directly hire Smart Contract Auditors; however, jobs also exist in companies which projects outsource their security auditing to. Given the Web3 industry is still quite new, small collectives of auditors are joining to create their own companies.
As with many cybersecurity-related pathways, consulting can be very lucrative. In the Web3 world, the leading bounty platform is Immunefi.
Bounties can reach the millions, and top Smart Contract Auditors can do very well on solo-auditing platforms.
It’s a very interesting and highly challenging pathway. If you thrive in chaos and are keenly interested in diving deep into the technical workings of the platforms and products, this can be a very exciting and rewarding career path.
Stay on the light path, and you can be very well rewarded for helping protect users’ funds throughout the Web3 ecosystem.
Community Manager
The average salary here can also vary quite a bit depending on the project and stage of the market cycle. Community Managers can expect to earn $60k-$80k on the low end and up to $500k and more, as seen in popular NFT projects during peak cycle mania.
Community Management can be an exciting and rewarding job in Web3 if you enjoy the challenge of herding thousands of people in Discord channels, helping educate users about the industry and project nuances, and otherwise being a first line of support for user engagement,
As with most career pathways, gaining initial traction will be difficult. Many Community Manager positions are given to those users who are already taking on the role of supporting the community for a project for free. As you gain trust and experience, landing these roles will become much easier and well worth the effort.
