In a world full of competition and uncertainty, everyone’s in search of skills or expertise that can help them land a good job. With the blockchain space booming in popularity at the moment, career prospects in the industry look very promising.
Now if you are not very familiar with the technology, we will start by taking a quick dive into the world of blockchain.
What is Blockchain?
In simple words, a blockchain is a digital register of transactions. It’s a technology that serves as a platform to transit digital information without the risk of being tampered or counterfeited. Today it is a strong backbone of the internet space. This is a very resourceful invention that has brought change in the global business market. It has helped numerous businesses in many ways.
Today, blockchain technology is rapidly becoming prevalent all over the world. It’s an emerging job skill in the IT industry, with blockchain expertise being the fastest-growing skill according to several international studies. The reason for the high demands for people with blockchain skills is its many fields of application. Thus, there is a huge demand for blockchain jobs as well. So you should pull up your sleeves and start gaining blockchain expertise and move towards making a good career!
How Blockchain Works?
To explain in a few simple words, blockchain acts like a Google spreadsheet, which is being shared by a huge number of systems, across the globe. These “spreadsheets” are called blocks. They are linked to the internet, & whenever a transaction takes place, its details get recorded in that spreadsheet. Anyone, across the globe, with a computer or mobile device can approach the spreadsheet through the internet. Those accessing the spreadsheet can not only view but also add transactions as well; however editing the information already present in it, is not allowed.
Blockchain Technology Characteristics
- Tamperproof: Blockchain provides transaction immunity and distributed ledger design, which are important requirements for abolishing the need for an enforcing element of trust in the ecosystem. Tamper-proof data that is distributed permits an environment in which there is no issue related to trust.
- Transparency: Blockchain technology provides transparency between participants. It promotes the making of a public record of activity in the network to which all contributors have admission in real time.
- Origin: Blockchain maintains an unchallengeable record of transactions & thus confirms asset ownership since the time the asset first originates. This significantly reduces risk. This capability will facilitate the lessening of the incident of theft, fraud & miss-selling of high value assets & intellectual properties.
Blockchain Structure
Reasonably, a blockchain consists of several layers. These are:
- Infrastructure
- Networking
- Consensus
- Data
- Application
Decentralized, distributed, and mostly public, blockchain, as mentioned earlier is a digital ledger record of transactions, across several computers. With the assistance of blockchain, one can confirm & check databases of transactions by the contributors. This is quite inexpensive too.
With the help of peer-to-peer network blockchain databases that are distributed, managed independently. A blockchain is a value-exchange procedure that maintains title rights.
Blockchain Categories
There are four types of Blockchain networks:
- Public blockchains: These are blockchains with absolutely no access restrictions. Anyone with an Internet connection can send transactions to it.
- Private Blockchains: These require prior permission. One cannot join it if not invited by the network administrators. The participant and validator access is restricted.
- Hybrid blockchains: These are blockchains with a combination of centralized & decentralized features.
- Sidechains: These are blockchains that run in parallel to a primary blockchain. Entries from the main blockchain can be connected to and from the sidechain. Thus, a sidechain can otherwise function autonomously of the primary blockchain.
Blockchain Career Opportunities – How much do you get paid for having Blockchain expertise?
As Blockchain is considered as one of the fastest-developing skill sets, the number of jobs is growing at a remarkable rate. Thus, Blockchain professionals’ salaries are higher compared to other IT professionals. The Blockchain talent pool is quite limited still. Despite the fact that there are many high paying jobs, people with blockchain skill sets are hard to find. This is the reason why big tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, are having their own team to study and research blockchain spaces.
The demand for blockchain professionals is there in almost every sector like the BFSI sector (banking, financial services, and insurance) healthcare, supply chain, gaming, real-estate and others. Even some government institutions have also implemented blockchain technology in their operations.
Typically, the salary of a blockchain developer at the junior level could be around $120,748 in the United States. However, with a good amount of skills and expertise one can earn over $150k, on a yearly basis in the US. The higher the experience & the better your skillset is the higher will be the yearly compensation. Also, the salary range varies depending on what degree you have and at what position you are working in.
Blockchain Career Options
Blockchain has been able to revolutionise both massive corporations and start-ups. So there are many areas and industries where you could find a blockchain job.
Let’s take a look at the career options in the blockchain space:
Blockchain Developer – Blockchain developers work as full stack developers. If one has great expertise in server-side programming with excellent analytical skills then this career could be a good option. With an understanding of setting up nodes, the end to end systems of blockchain application, how to submit these transactions, how to proceed with blockchain transactions & how to trigger Smart Contract functions can help you land a job. Skills like AJAX, Microsoft SQL Server, NET, Visual Studio, SQL, JavaScript, C, C++, REST, FTP, HTML, XML, MYSQL and the likes are required to grab a job as a blockchain developer. Several industries are open to hire a blockchain developer, which includes financial services, government departments, and tech companies.
Blockchain Quality Engineer – Looking after all the areas of quality in the development process; including automation framework testing, and manual testing; devising strategy for load performance tests; conducting research and advising on blockchain tools, are what a blockchain quality engineer is responsible for. This profession entails dealing in planning, QA & delivery of intricate blockchain projects. They are also accountable to see that all the QA standards are maintained. Someone with both engineering and MBA degrees can be a good candidate for the job.
Blockchain Legal Consultants – As blockchain technology is falling under more supervisory inspection, companies and organizations implementing the technology need to appoint or contract legal counsel in the initial stages. Thus, blockchain legal consulting is a good career option. People having a vast understanding of the process of blockchain from development to implementation can go for a career as a blockchain legal consultant. They must know the arrangement & how to administer the process; and guide the companies accordingly. Legal partnerships and contracts related to blockchain are also what a blockchain legal consultant needs to oversee. As a legal consultant following tasks may also need to be performed:
- Drafting legal agreements
- Performing due diligence
Blockchain Designers – Blockchain companies require designers to work both on the customer facing products and their websites. To be a blockchain designer one needs to be proficient in – PS, Illustrator, UI designs (web and mobile), etc. Good communication skills would also be a major benefit for this career.
Blockchain Project Manager – For executing successful blockchain projects in any organization companies need to contact blockchain project managers to find blockchain solutions for them. They are responsible for both the success & failure of the project. Blockchain project managers are employed to plan, supervise, & implement projects in order to realize specific goals of the companies. In simple terms they are required to manage & facilitate the blockchain projects.
Blockchain Software Engineer – A blockchain software engineer is a programming expert with an education and training in software design & computer science. To be a blockchain software engineer one would require a practical knowledge of cloud technologies and database management.
Blockchain Product Manager – For those with a good amount of programming knowledge the job of blockchain product manager can be a good career option. A blockchain product manager is employed to look after the development, coding, & distribution roles. The two most important duties of a blockchain product manager are to lead time-sensitive projects and to control the development budget.
Risk Analyst – As one of the highest paying blockchain jobs worldwide, Risk analysts are responsible for assessing risks, assisting in programming, product improvement; information analytics and project documentation.
Business Analyst – This job consists of examining the viability of innovations & up-gradations. The main job of a business analyst is to evaluate technologies. They work to find out what kind of products would attract the target audience. They also make use of their analytical, coding and statistical know-how to assist effective customer-centric services.
Crypto Community Manager – Crypto Community Manager plays an important role in marketing and client interactions. Working as a network administrator, they track and present engagement statistics over all marketing.
Blockchain jobs in Banking– The use of blockchain technology in banking has increased giving rise to career opportunities for blockchain experts to have a career in the banking sector too. The main reason for which Blockchain technology in the banking sector is so popular is the fact that it improves efficiency, enhances security, offers unchangeable records, provides quick transaction time and prevents third-party involvement and decreases costs. With the use of blockchain technology in banking, payment solutions and KYC & Document verification process has become very efficient and smooth.
Where can you find a blockchain job?
If you are planning to work in the field of blockchain technology and are searching for opportunities in the US, you can start your search on job portals where you will find the latest job postings from the blockchain industry. You can filter and search noth entry level and expert jobs. A good place to start your search would be Blockchain Works, a dedicated blockchain jobs portal.
Learn Blockchain Technology
Some steps you can take to start your journey into the blockchain industry are:
- First you could enroll yourself in some Blockchain Courses. Consequently you will achieve a blockchain certification.
- While going through the course make sure to know all the basic terms in the field. Being accustomed to terminology is very important.
- For better understanding, go through various YouTube videos, as they provide both technical details and practical demonstration as well.
- Try to participate in different blockchain conferences and events. This will help you learn more about the industry dynamics.
- Concentrate on improving and developing cryptography skills and programming knowledge.
- Educating yourself in distributed computing and smart contracts could also be a good idea.
Courses for Blockchain Technology: If you are passionate about learning Blockchain technology and also have plans to pursue a career in blockchain you could go for a blockchain certification course. This type of courses will help you learn about relevant areas in cryptocurrency & the wider blockchain space. It will also help you excel in the core blockchain platforms. You will get to know about Bitcoin, how it works and some key vocabulary. Specialized courses provide you with detailed blockchain instructions & offer valuable guidelines that ensure you get a clear perception of blockchain technology & its implementation.
Blockchain Career Opportunities – Conclusion
As the blockchain space continues to grow, the prospect of getting hired at a blockchain company is quite high, with many opportunities available. Experts believe that Blockchain is here to stay and it will play an important role in both everyday life and in business. Thus, there will be constant demand for Blockchain expertise and Blockchain professionals by big tech giants, large banks, governments and small startups. Therefore, this is the perfect time to start thinking about a career in blockchain and taking the right steps to get there!
