Joining the Blockchain Revolution
A once in a generation opportunity to get in at the ground floor.
Have you been thinking about getting into coding or maybe even blockchain technologies, but haven’t quite made the leap yet? If so, check out my top 6 reasons for why I believe you should. And if you haven’t subscribed yet, feel free to hit the subscribe button below. All of my posts will be free for the foreseeable future, so you have nothing to lose!
Thank you to those that have subscribed! In this newsletter I aim to cover all things blockchain engineering and smart contract development. If you haven’t checked out my about page on the newsletter, feel free to check it out here so that you can get an idea of who I am, what I believe in, and what specific topics I plan on covering in the future.
As I mentioned in my welcome post, I think smart contracts will dominate the future of all agreements as we know them today. This will lead to a revolution of epic proportions, and I don’t know about you, but this is a revolution that I plan on joining. In today’s article, I aim to make the case that you should as well!
Without further ado, let’s get into my top 6 reasons as to why I think you should become a blockchain engineer and join the blockchain revolution!
1. Salary
Let’s start with the primary driver here, blockchain development and engineering pays well, very well. ZipRecruiter lists the average salary of blockchain developers as $154,550 per year, with the majority of developer salaries being between $124,500 and $203,000.
Consensys, one of the world’s leading blockchain companies, also projects an average blockchain developer salary of $150,000 — $175,000.
Yes, I know, you probably aren’t going to start at $150,000 a year with zero professional experience, but if you position yourself accordingly and put in the work, it is entirely possible within the span of 2-3 years. And as you learn, grow, and interact with the blockchain community, opportunities will quickly make themselves apparent to you.
The best part is, you don’t need a fancy computer science degree or 18 cyber certifications. All you need is a passion for learning, a strong work ethic, and a little bit of discipline. From there, you can build projects and display them on your portfolio website or Github, and that can be all you need to land that awesome blockchain engineering job.
2. Strong Job Market / Job Security
In the realm of anything cyber, there are certainly no shortage of jobs, and blockchain technologies make no exception. Blockchain technologies are gaining some serious traction in the institutional and enterprise space. Today, it seems as if everyone is getting on board.
According to a compiled report on LinkedIn, blockchain was listed as the number one “hard skill” that was in demand for 2020, and it is likely that this trend will continue into the future.
The Consensys blockchain developer job kit notes that while the amount of firms using blockchain is still relatively low (as of 2018, things have heated up since then), the industry is still emerging, and will continue to expand over the next decade.
Virtually every major firm is hiring for blockchain developers to include Facebook, Microsoft, Cisco, Amazon, JPMorgan, EY, IBM, Deloitte, and so many more.
In a post pandemic world where job markets are shaky, blockchain is a safe haven. Cryptocurrency and blockchain startups are rising at a rapid rate, and oftentimes they can’t find enough developers to fill their positions. You can find a list of open positions here.
Projects are always looking for strong solidity developers. If blockchain continues to grow at the rate that it is, I foresee a massive need for even more blockchain engineers in the future.
3. Remote Opportunities
Not much needs to be said here, remote work is just plain awesome. You don’t want to commute for 1–2 hours everyday to get to a job with annoying coworkers or a boss that constantly watches over your shoulder? No problem. Blockchain technologies have you covered.
Most blockchain jobs have the option for remote work. So if sleeping in, setting your own schedule, and saving an hour or two a day in commute is your thing, then you might want to look into a future in blockchain.
4. Revolutionary Technology
In my opinion, blockchain technologies are more groundbreaking and revolutionary than the advent of the internet itself. In this blog I talk about where cryptocurrency and blockchain currently is, and where it’s headed. Once I started digging in to the technologies and how they all worked, I became instantly obsessed. There’s no other way to say it, blockchain technologies are just fricken cool.
New projects, decentralized applications, and technological breakthroughs are coming out on a daily basis. There’s a popular saying that you often see in the blockchain and crypto world: “One week in crypto is one year in other industries”.
Keeping up with the latest and greatest blockchain developments is practically a full time job. Every day a new blockchain project arises. New development tools, services, and platforms are constantly coming out or being updated. And new learning resources and tutorials are popping up left and right. The space is hot.
To be honest, it’s a little overwhelming, but you have to realize that everyone is learning and growing in the blockchain space. If you are as passionate as I am about this stuff, you just learn to embrace the chaos. Just jump in feet first and have some fun with all the craziness!
5. Fantastic Community
The blockchain community has been extremely inviting. From my experience, it is a highly inclusive space, and anyone who wants to hop on board is welcome to do so. Everyone I have reached out to for help has been great, as most of us here are passionate and have a desire to help each other learn.
There are a plethora of learning resources online, with many of them being free and high quality. I’ll create a follow up article on this topic at a later date, but you can find awesome tutorials and guides on YouTube, Udemy, and others.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Hackathon events. Hackathon events are where a bunch of coders get together and simply build awesome applications. Often there are great prizes and rewards for building the most innovative application as well.
6. Make a Difference, Help Make the World A Better Place
There’s no sugarcoating it, blockchain technologies are revolutionary, and the problems they are aiming to solve will make the world a better place.
Despite the fact that contractual agreements power all global trade and commerce, the problem with contracts today is that if one side of the contractual agreement doesn’t fulfill their obligation, the other loses out, sometimes big.
One glaring example of this would be Hurricane Katrina, when insurance companies decided that they didn’t want to pay out insurance claims to the countless homes that were destroyed. I can’t even imagine the amount of times this has happened throughout history.
As I mentioned earlier, smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, which are nothing more than self executing, fully automated digital agreements, aim to replace all contractual agreements as they exist today. The contracts are written into computer code and available for anyone out there in the world to see.
When a certain event or data input triggers the contract, the terms of the agreement within the contract are automatically carried out. Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.
Even cooler are what are called oracles that help deliver those data inputs to the smart contracts in a highly tamper proof, secure, and decentralized way. I’m a huge advocate of Chainlink's decentralized oracle network technologies.
You can check out my other article on why I think Chainlink is potentially the greatest investment on the planet, but I also take a deep dive into Chainlink’s technology and why it is desperately needed. Chainlink provides a definitive source of truth to smart contracts.
I’m not even scratching the surface here on the absolutely fascinating and revolutionary technologies that blockchain has to offer, but what really caught my attention when deciding to get into the blockchain world is that I could contribute to something that could make the world a better, more efficient, and more trustworthy place.
In order for blockchain technologies to truly blossom and change the world, they desperately need new developers like you or me to get involved. So take the leap, start learning, and start building. You won’t regret it!