Day in the Life at UMA | Chandler De Kock, growth specialist
When I think about my job, my career, my values and the things I care about, there’s a thread that can be pulled through most of that stuff. Freedom of choice.
That might be the central thesis and motivator along the path that led me to crypto and to UMA, where I work as a growth specialist focused on business development.
Driving bizdev in web3
Today, I’m focused on growing our ecosystem; from developers, to the community, to our products. It’s a generalized role that connects me with many different places, people and projects. I get to meet some awesome people every day and learn about their bright ideas and motivations.
I get to solve some problems and challenges in our organization and in others.
It’s like having a front row seat to mad science, and then finding ways to fit the outcomes of that experimentation into UMA’s projects like the optimistic oracle and other products and tools we’ve created that are pushing DeFi functionality forward and earning mindshare.
Choice matters
But part of where I am now is likely due to where I came from. I grew up in a family of central bankers in South Africa. That gave me a decent understanding about how sovereign financial institutions function. The rebellious side of me also measured the effects — good and bad — that centralized financial authority has had on countries and the world. I asked questions like: who has access to financial tools and services and why? Who doesn’t? Whose interests are served by the central bank’s “pulleys and levers”?
Not everyone has much choice within the systems we’ve built.
I felt that there was a better path forward for finance that wouldn’t or couldn’t be dictated by the central authorities, benevolent or not. People need freedom of choice and agency to direct their own financial lives and I saw an opportunity for that in crypto.
By helping to create a healthy, sustainable decentralized financial ecosystem that crosses borders and socioeconomic fences, we can bring more choice to financial services and tools, while also stoking competition within the traditional or centralized financial world. We can help to create a better, fairer system. It might be a long process, but it’s a worthy one.
What we’re building now is a democratizing force
A strong DeFi ecosystem requires cross pollination of ideas but also compatibility. We’re literally building projects on different blockchains, so finding ways to connect projects, teams and projects is a major focus of our growth strategists.
A rising tide raises all boats.
At UMA, our growth strategists help break down silos and find ways to integrate projects and dApps to expand use cases or create “Russian Nesting Dolls” of products and services. DeFi is full of choice, but too many options can also be overwhelming. So from a business-to-business standpoint, it’s really about building or identifying Lego blocks that make other protocols or other ecosystems more functional and valuable. That’s how we measure success.
My biggest challenge is maneuvering through up-and-down markets or market sentiment. If people are feeling bullish or bearish, or if markets are up and down, there is risk of volatility in biz dev.
Like markets, priorities change all the time, and that’s okay. But I find myself often facing the challenge of smoothing out the ripples, or sometimes waves, of sentiment so that we can focus more closely on building.
The joy of success as it takes hold
I love seeing progress and success take hold. For instance, if we look at cross-chain bridging projects like Across, these were conceptually quite new only a year ago. Now they’re one of the hottest things happening in the ecosystem and in the future will be a core piece of tech that everyone uses.
It’s exciting to see that evolution as it emerges and grows in apparent hyperdrive. I love harnessing that power and energy and directing it to specific outcomes.
I feel like the progress we’re seeing in our industry also bodes well for my home continent, Africa.
One of the more rewarding aspects of my work is the ability to mentor and advise developers in the web3 space in my own backyard and other countries in Africa. Part of this arises through connecting like-minded people together who can collaborate and learn from each other.
We need to convert the freedom and choices crypto has birthed into plans of action while breaking down barriers to learning, working and building. There is a ridiculous amount of untapped potential and interest and need in Africa for DeFi and web3 and I’m excited to play a role in that future.
Join us at UMA
If UMA sounds like a good place for you to take the next step in your web3 career, then get in touch. You can also check out our current job postings here.
