Written by: Ada & Liam, Deep Tide TechFlow
Coin prices soar while job hunting freezes.
When Bitcoin broke $110,000 and Ethereum reached a new historic high, the community shouted, “The bull market is here”; however, the hiring market tells a different story.
“10,000 people squeeze into 28 positions,” the media's headline may seem exaggerated but reflects the true state of job seeking in Web3. Project teams are laying off, positions are rapidly decreasing, and job application emails are overflowing.
In her circle, Web3 headhunter Nancy couldn’t help but exclaim, “This year’s hiring requirements have become increasingly high, not only screening for educational qualifications and English proficiency but also requiring vertical project experience.”
Behind the superficial prosperity lies a contracting, picky, and brutal Web3 job market. The bull market effects of the crypto market and the industry's “breaking the circle” have drawn countless young people and Web2 transferees in, but they soon discover: there aren’t as many positions as they imagined, nor are the salaries as high as they thought.
Why is there a “bull market clamoring while the job market is in winter”?
When the myth of high salaries and survivor bias entice newcomers in, how many can truly establish a foothold in this seemingly bustling yet turbulent Web3 job market?
Soaring prices, a cold job market
The job market in Web3 is often the truest barometer of the industry.
Bitcoin broke $110,000 and Ethereum reached a new high, with media everywhere shouting “The bull market is here,” but the truth in the job market is entirely the opposite.
Antoniayly, the founder of the Web3 recruitment community abetterweb3, clearly perceives this contrast: “The job market has worsened for a long time, the number of job seekers keeps increasing, while job postings keep declining.”
In the past, abetterweb3 primarily focused on posting job listings, but now it has increasingly become a “job seeker information wall.” For example, from August 22 to 27, only 14 new job postings were added, while job seeker information reached as many as 24.
The harsh reality behind the numbers is that project teams are undergoing large-scale “downsizing”: even Lido, a staking protocol riding the Ethereum wave, cruelly cut 15% of its staff this year, and the once-glorious metaverse leader Sandbox laid off 50%.
The primary market remains sluggish, and many once-glorious crypto VCs are either going out of business or choosing to lie flat. Without external VC funding, many projects that relied on financing are quietly closing down or pivoting to the AI field to survive.
The job market is “more monks than porridge”: positions are shrinking like a funnel while job seekers are flooding in.
Under severe supply and demand imbalance, project teams have become unprecedentedly picky when hiring.
“Since last year, many clients have raised their requirements when hiring, not only wanting a background from large internet companies but also recent experience from relatively well-known Web3 projects or exchanges.”
James, the founder of Web3 headhunting company Talentverse, said, “There are also requirements regarding job content; if it involves smart contracts, token economics, or on-chain interactions, relevant work experience is necessary.”
However, even if these hard requirements are met, passing the interview is not guaranteed.
“I’ve seen too many candidates with backgrounds in large companies who have strong technical skills but only have a superficial understanding of Web3.” Yulia, a headhunter focusing on overseas markets, shared a case, “A P8 from a large company came for an interview, and when asked ‘how to design a DEX resistant to MEV,’ he was stunned for a full 30 seconds.”
Hard skills are merely a ticket to entry; employers also value some seemingly more “metaphysical” qualities.
“Positive attitude, industry enthusiasm, strong curiosity, fast learning ability, self-drive, independent thinking ability, stress resistance...” James listed seven or eight requirements in one breath, “These may seem abstract, but they are the underlying logic for filtering candidates when backgrounds are similar.”
Overseas teams have even stricter requirements. Yulia revealed that her clients (mainly projects from Europe and the United States) not only require fluent English but also a “cultural fit.” “They will discuss meme culture and the spirit of crypto punks during interviews; if you can't grasp these points, there’s basically no chance.”
The decrease in hiring demand reflects that startups are undergoing large-scale decline.
Antoniayly has deeply experienced this, “Around 2021, there was continuous hiring from infrastructure to applications, wallets, DeFi, social, and various crypto companies, but now basically only exchanges, public chains, and major DeFi applications are still hiring, as if all the small and micro enterprises in the entire industry have vanished.”
In terms of hiring trends, exchange strategies have also changed. In addition to traditional tech and product positions, more and more operational roles require Web2 growth experience. Amid the growth competition, candidates who know how to utilize Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, and private domain traffic are becoming the new favorites.
But what surprises people the most is the issue of age.
“This cycle is actually much more lenient with age restrictions compared to the previous cycle.” James's observation overturned many people's perceptions. In today’s internet industry, where one must worry about being “optimized” at 35, Web3 has opened its doors to some middle-aged individuals.
The reasons are realistic; as integration with traditional finance deepens, Web3 needs not only young people who can code but also seasoned professionals who understand finance, have connections, and can navigate regulations.
“Web3 is transitioning from a wild era to specialization.” James concluded, “Previously, courage was enough to strike gold; now, what is needed is a combination of professional skills + industry recognition + resource integration.”
Expectation misalignment
Is Web3 lacking talent?
“Lacking, yet not lacking.” This answer reached a consensus among the interviewees.
This seemingly contradictory phenomenon reveals the structural problems in the Web3 talent market: on one hand, a large number of job seekers are submitting resumes, while on the other, exchanges and project teams still cannot find suitable candidates.
Headhunter Nancy is based in Singapore, and her clients are mostly top exchanges. In her observation, operational positions belong to the typical “false prosperity.”
“Every time we post operational positions, the resumes received could flood the inbox.” Nancy said with a wry smile, “But those that truly meet the requirements may be less than 1%.”
Where does the problem lie?
“Many people think operations merely involve tweeting and organizing activities,” Nancy explained, “But exchanges need experts in specific fields. For example, in contract operations, you need to understand contract mechanisms, risk control logic, and market-making thinking; for community operations, you need to understand DAO governance, token economics, and incentive mechanism design.”
A real case is that a certain exchange recruited for “DeFi product operations,” requiring candidates to independently design liquidity mining schemes. However, among the hundreds of resumes received, fewer than 10 truly understood impermanent loss.
“Most people are applying for Web3 positions with a Web2 mindset,” Nancy summarized, “They see the word operations and apply, regardless of whether it's content operations, user operations, or product operations. This broad net strategy does not work in Web3.”
The most subtle mismatch in crypto job seeking occurs between expectations and market realities.
Evan has several clients from Web3 projects whose founding teams come from top investment banks or exchanges, and their teams are highly elite, with high requirements for talent, making it rare to find candidates who truly meet the criteria.
“I searched in the market for three months, interviewed over 50 people, and not one fully matched,” Evan said helplessly, “In the end, I could only suggest that clients adjust their expectations: either nurture a product manager to learn Web3 or find a Web3 product manager to supplement vertical knowledge.”
This is the “mismatch between ideals and reality,” which is quite common in Web3 startups. They hope to attract talent with salaries of startups, but candidates with backgrounds in big companies + Web3 are often hard to find, leading to a futile effort.
“Many founders live in their own worlds,” a seasoned headhunter complained, “They believe their project will be the next Uniswap, so top talent should take pay cuts to join for the dream. The reality is that top talent has many options.”
For job seekers, they must also experience “salary expectation gaps.” In the eyes of outsiders, Web3 is a land of opportunity, but salaries are not necessarily as high as imagined.
Especially for those who previously worked in traditional finance PE/VC or large internet companies, entering a Web3 company may even result in a pay cut. Their reasons for joining Web3 are simple: Web2 has peaked, the crypto industry is freer, and there's also the chance for financial freedom through investments.
“Survivor bias has created too many myths of overnight riches in the crypto circle, making many people rush in, thinking I can too,” a HR complained.
Workplace unspoken rules
In the Web3 job market, there is an unwritten “hierarchy of disdain”: technical > product > others.
This hierarchy of disdain is most visibly reflected in salary disparities.
“For the same P7 level, the package for technical roles may be 2-3 times that of operational roles,” Nancy bluntly stated, “Moreover, technical roles also have token incentives, whereas operational roles have basically none.”
More cruelly, the substitutability of non-technical positions is extremely high. “We’ve seen too many cases where non-technical roles get eliminated within a short time if they don’t meet expectations or produce high output,” Evan said, “But in technical roles, there are career ladders to climb.”
Why is this happening?
“Web3 is essentially a technology-driven industry.” Evan stated, “No matter how well your market performs, if your product is poor, users won't buy it. However, if your product is innovative, even without much promotion, people will come to use it.”
This “product-first” logic is particularly evident in DeFi: Uniswap has almost no marketing team but has claimed the leading position in DEX through its revolutionary AMM mechanism.
According to statistics from web3.career, among non-technical positions, product managers have the highest salaries, followed by legal, finance, HR, design, sales, project managers, marketing, social media operations, and community managers...
Of course, there are exceptions.
“If you are the kind of Business Development person who can bring real business, your status is no less than that of technical personnel.” Nancy added, “For instance, a BD who can secure listings on major exchanges easily earns over a million annually. But there may be only about 50 such people in the entire industry.”
However, for newcomers, the crypto industry is not friendly.
“Only screening, not nurturing; it’s too costly to train a novice, and we lack the patience,” a project founder stated decisively.
If industry recognition is the explicit threshold for Web3, then “circle recognition” is the implicit threshold.
“Web3 is an industry that heavily relies on trust.” James's statement captures the essence of the problem. In an industry filled with rug pulls and scams, “recommendations from acquaintances” often carry more weight than resumes.
An unspoken rule in the crypto industry is that many positions are never publicly advertised.
“A considerable portion of the exchanges I’ve interacted with fill positions through referrals,” Nancy revealed, “Public recruitment is too time-consuming, and it’s hard to judge if candidates truly understand the field. But if they are recommended by core contributors, it’s almost always reliable.”
Thus, an interesting phenomenon often appears in the industry: an employee from an exchange or project publicly criticizes a competitor only to jump to that very competitor shortly afterward; a well-known figure in the industry transitions to a high executive position at an exchange or institution, gradually replacing their subordinates with former colleagues, as they believe that the old pals are more trustworthy and easier to work with.
This “circle culture” is similarly evident in overseas projects. One overseas Layer 2 project’s hiring requirements included: must have participated in ETHDenver or Devcon.
However, circle culture has also brought negative impacts. “The same people come and go, recommending each other and supporting each other. Newcomers find the barriers too high to enter,” Nancy said.
Finding certainty in uncertainty
Seeing so many people flocking to Web3, do you also feel the urge to join?
Don't panic, let's first look at a failed case.
Evan once encountered a candidate: graduated from a top 985 university and served as a technical lead in a large internet company.
In pursuit of more possibilities, he turned to a Web3 startup team. But a year later, the project failed to deliver results, and with funding issues, the company dissolved, leaving him unemployed. He then tried to interview with other projects, but due to the sudden drop in popularity of his previous field, his experience couldn’t transfer, leading to long-term job hunting failures, relying only on gig work to sustain his life.
“Most people only see the stories of survivors, but cases like the above that are less than satisfactory happen almost every day,” Evan pointed out.
“In a bull market, talent is sought after, while in a bear market, the door is wide open. A project might fail in a few months, and a once-hot sector might lose all its heat by the next cycle.”
Funding failures, plummeting coin prices, compliance constraints, hacker attacks... any one of these factors could lead to a project’s exit.
“Web3 is a high-risk industry; if you seek stability, there’s no need to come here,” James summarized very calmly.
However, even so, there are still people willing to take the risk. Is there a relatively safe path?
Nancy gives advice: “If you have a good background, you can first hone your skills in a large internet company, but don’t stay for more than three years before transitioning to an exchange. They are at the top of the Web3 ecosystem and relatively stable.”
Of course, there are also those who come with passion and ideals, willing to join startup teams to do things that can change the world. One candidate mentioned by Yulia, originally an algorithm engineer at a medium-sized financial company, had no native Web3 experience but successfully entered a star project thanks to self-drive and long-term technical accumulation on GitHub, eventually growing into a department head years later.
“The Web3 talent market is as volatile as cryptocurrency,” James said, “But in the long run, truly valuable talent, like Bitcoin, will always be recognized by the market.”
For those still on the fence, Yulia’s advice is more practical: “Don’t get caught up in whether to go all in; instead, take the first step. Learn a smart contract language, participate in a DAO, experience DeFi once... Only by truly engaging can you judge if this is your opportunity.”
When we asked interviewees about potential hotspots for talent competition in the future, the answers were remarkably unanimous:
The combination of AI and Web3, the integration of traditional finance and on-chain assets, and the infrastructure aimed at trading.
This might be the next direction for talent influx and the next hot spot for Web3.
