‘Non Critical’ Crypto Jobs Remain in Demand Despite Layoffs

In Brief

• 2021 saw a 100% spike in crypto job demand from the year before.
• Crypto layoffs are rampant in 2022, fueled by events such as the Terra LUNA and FTX collapse.
• Despite layoffs, roles that are not 'mission critical' remain in-demand.

Crypto job layoffs were an unfortunate part of the 2022 calendar year, given the adverse climate and events such as the collapse of TerraLUNA and FTX. But there’s a change in trend for in-demand roles within the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry.

Switching any job in financial, marketing, sales, etc., is challenging. The transition is indeed a big step. One such significant change is getting started in a crypto career; most of it was noticed in 2021.

The path to making a career in the cryptocurrency domain may look complicated at first, but it gets easier as one sets out a straightforward way to follow. This industry is one of the fastest-growing fields across the globe. Despite a relatively large learning curve, lucrative salaries across the industry attract many candidates of different age groups and specializations.

2022 hasn’t been kind, however. Given the extremely bearish conditions, the crypto downturn caused many in this sector to be laid off, while others are second-guessing getting involved at all.

BeInCrypto reached out to different recruitment experts/head-hunters to explore this precarious situation. These experts had some engaging narratives to share. Especially considering the shift in demand for talent from several disciplines within crypto from 2021 to 2022.

Crypto jobs see high growth rates
The demand for cryptocurrency and blockchain jobs grew dramatically last year. Job portal websites such as LinkedIn were the primary go-to’s during this time. The growth amounted to more than 100% between September 2020 and July 2021, per data from Crypto Parrot.

Data from 2021 identified that software development jobs accounted for the largest share of all crypto and blockchain job postings at nearly 30%. The share represented a year-over-year drop from the 34.80% share during a similar period last year.

Management came in second with a share of 10%, up 29.87% from 2020. Among the job postings, human resources accounted for the highest YoY growth rate at 200%. Overall, the share of crypto and blockchain job postings grew 118% compared to Sept. 5, 2020.

Meanwhile, most companies incorporated remote work, making it more convenient for job seekers. A trend that is still active at the time of this publication.

A new study from crypto venture capital firm Framework gives a glimpse into this remote work narrative. As part of its study, the venture capital firm surveyed 18 companies based inside and outside of the U.S.

‘The majority of surveyed companies consider themselves “fully distributed” and have remote work as the primary operating model of their businesses.’

It further added:
“According to our survey results, >33% of employees of even US-based companies are international, making this operation seem necessary given the global workforce in crypto. Earlier-stage companies are more likely to be remote whereas companies that have raised a Series A or B or slightly more likely to have one or more formal offices.”

That said, layoffs were, and still are, a part of this sector.

From highs to lows
The public and private market sectors have taken a blow in 2022. Inflation concerns, interest rates hike, and geopolitical issues have factored into this rollercoaster. With that said, companies took measures to cut down on their expenses.

As of mid-November, more than 73,000 workers in the U.S. tech sector were let go in mass job cuts so far in 2022, according to a Crunchbase News tally.

136,989 employees were laid off by 849 worldwide tech companies in 2022 alone per datasets from layoffs.fyi, a crowdsourced database of tech layoffs.

The cryptocurrency market meltdown really took off in June following the collapse of the Terra LUNA ecosystem. During that period, BeInCrypto reported that around 3,500 crypto employees were affected.

Major crypto and tech giants like Coinbase, Meta, Stripe, and Dapperlabs, all took steps to cut down their employee counts.

Patrick Collison, CEO of payments processor Stripe, said in a Nov. 3 memo that 14% of the firm’s staff — around 1,000 employees — would be laid off, citing “inflation, energy costs, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets, and sparser startup funding” as reasons for the cuts.

Another one bites the dust
This time around, the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange has been a major blow to the industry. The fallout has led to a massive wave of crypto-company layoffs, starting from Metaplex, one of the many companies directly affected by the FTX contagion.

This also shows an imbalance for firms that successfully raised funds but didn’t quite manage their treasury. This is because many companies grew fat off the 2021 bull run highs. They spent recklessly while failing to improve their products and customer experience.

Instead of making crypto more accessible to ordinary consumers, they blew millions of dollars on TV ads and naming sports stadiums. For instance, Crypto.com spent $700 million on renaming the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Speaking to BeInCrypto, CryptoRecruit founder Neil Dundon touched upon a similar motion but injected some certainty amid the growing chaos.

He asserted:
“While there are a bunch of layoffs in crypto as there are in the broader tech market, this presents opportunities for those who are well funded and can last through this market. We are quite busy with those projects that have been steady clients over the years plus new projects that recently raised funds. The ones that are laying off are those that grew a little too fast and are scaling back to be a little leaner through these more turbulent times.”

In terms of specific in-demand roles, Dundon added:
“It’s less about increased demand and more about what roles are being made redundant. Such as content, community, marketing, research, etc. Roles that are not mission-critical.”

All-in-one platform to find crypto jobs
BeInCrypto has created a platform called BeInCrypto Jobs, where multiple job opportunities from various firms are allocated.

BeInCrypto Jobs currently lists 645 open roles from 154 companies within different niches ranging from marketing to software development to content research.

For roles like marketing, there are more than 85 open positions just in November 2022 within this sector.

For instance, IMPT, a leading name in the blockchain industry, is actively hiring for a Marketing Lead with compensation of up to $250,000 per year. Other companies, such as Nexxyo Labs and even BeInCrypto, are hiring for a marketing-based roles.

Demand remains intact for web3 jobs, but candidates might need to sharpen their skills to stand out in the blockchain sector.

Alena Afanaseva, CEO and founder of BeInCrypto, recently shared some insights for potential job seekers who are still keen to jump into this growing domain.

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