Seen, a division of online job board Indeed, published a report on November 7th called ‘What the bitcoin job market looks like in 2019 (and beyond)’ which contains many valuable insights into the current state of blockchain and cryptocurrency employment.
Job listing have generally been a bountiful source of information in 2019, providing leaks and indicators from different companies working on new projects that had previously been unannounced – as well as general news of expansion and employment.
Ripple for example, which appeared on the Seen list of top blockchain employers (by % of total job listings) at number 9 of 15, opened a new office in Washington D.C. late October which involved the recruitment of a specialist ‘government relations’ team. Likewise, Bank of America listed a vacancy for a management position
Block.one listed a massive 69 job vacancies in a matter of weeks back in August – many of which in preparation for its forthcoming ‘Voice’ social media platform. What wasn’t known at the time however, was that many of these jobs (including hiring managers and ‘talent acquisition specialists’) were advertised prior to the announcement that the company would be establishing a new HQ in Arlington, Virginia.
The report contains a lot of valuable insights and the primary topics being ‘job seeker and employer interest in bitcoin, cryptocurrency and blockchain roles over time’, ‘annual percentage change in the share of bitcoin, crypto and blockchain jobs and searches’, ‘top five tech roles related to bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency’ and ‘top 15 companies hiring the most for bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency roles’.
Between September 2015 and September 2019, unsurprisingly, the % of total vacancies that are for cryptocurrency or blockchain related roles increased significantly (by 1,457%), with the share of searches per-million increased by 469%.
Over the past year, however, the share of cryptocurrency listings per million on Indeed rose by 26% – whilst searches per million decreased by 53%. There are a few potential factors that may have influenced this. A greater number of candidates may have already settled into their positions within the cryptocurrency industry, or transferred their talents to a less volatile one; and in general: cryptocurrency jobs may be less desirable to candidates at present.
Looking at the top five tech roles in blockchain and cryptocurrency, it becomes immediately Clear that the majority of positions appear to be searching for specialists. In fact, it is quite arguably as to whether software architect is a technical role due to being less “hands-on” than the other results.
With regards to the ‘top 15 companies’ hiring for such roles, by % of listings, five cryptocurrency-focused organisations made the cut: Coinbase (7), Ripple (9), Circle (11), ConsenSys (13) and Kraken (12).
Unsurprisingly, many of the top employers are blue-chip multinational organisations such as IBM.
