How to Get a Job in Digital Currency

Bitcoin and digital currency are exciting new areas of business and finance, and an ideal target for anybody looking to break into the tech industry or change career paths.

The revolutionary potential of digital currency is only just starting to be fulfilled, meaning that there is a huge range of opportunities for businesses to take advantage of. But because of the fact that it is so new and different, there is also a huge shortage of knowledgeable, experienced and skilled professionals able to take on the challenge of helping businesses to capitalize on the potential of Bitcoin and digital currency. All of which means that this is an ideal time for tech savvy workers looking to get a job in Bitcoin or other digital currency related companies.

If you are a digital currency enthusiast with a bit of knowledge about the industry, and any transferable skills such as in marketing, journalism, business admin, or actually writing programming code, then you can expect to command a great salary as well as being able to work on exciting and disruptive new projects.

In this article you will find some preliminary information and useful resources for anybody who wants to know how to get a job in digital currency.

Training & Qualifications

Even though this is a new and unique industry, it is really not that different from any other when it comes to finding work. The main thing that employers are looking for is proof that you have the best skills to do the job well. Most people involved in Bitcoin at the moment are self-starters who will not have been through specialist training in this area, so qualifications are definitely not necessary. But of course they can only help, and it may surprise you to know that there are courses and certificates available to help you learn more and prove both your ability, as well aas your initiative, to prospective employers.

A range of courses, from general blockchain business courses to programming courses, can be found in our article on How To Learn Everything About Bitcoin.

Experience

If there is one thing that is true for the digital currency industry more than any other it’s that volunteers are always welcome and can always find something to do.

The code which runs Bitcoin and most other digital currencies is open source, and so available for anybody to tinker with and help to improve. Meanwhile, many alt coins have very active communities of users who double up as evangelists, amateur marketing teams and a lot else besides. Getting involved in community initiatives can be great fun, can help to add value to the coins which you might own yourself, and perhaps most importantly will help you to gain contacts and experience that will improve invaluable to you in finding the paid position you are looking for.

Of all the information you will find in this article, perhaps the best advice is to simply get stuck in and do something.

Within the alt coin community volunteers may even transition directly into employees, working for the foundation which maintains the coin in question, or even getting hired directly by the blockchain…

Hired By The Blockchain: Working For A DAC

At its heart Bitcoin is all about decentralized peer-to-peer finance. But finance is not the only area with the potential to be transformed beyond recognition by the power of modern software techniques to create and enable decentralized structures. Business itself can be decentralized.

This is exactly what a new breed of company known as a ‘decentralized autonomous company’ or ‘DAC’ is trying to do.

DACs do not have an office with an HR manager conducting interviews. They probably won’t advertise job openings either. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get hired by one. They hire people directly via blockchain voting by shareholders. To get hired, you just need to share a proposal for the work you would like to do (improving the code, developing a new feature, marketing, providing auxiliary services etc) and convince enough people to vote for your proposal.

The original, and still the biggest, example of this is Bitshares.

Bitshares has 101 workers, or ‘delegates’, hired using approval voting via the blockchain. Anybody who owns BTS coins gets to vote on the workers they would like to see hired, and anyone who has registered an account on the blockchain (no personal info required, just a wallet) can stand as a delegate. In addition to the work they have been hired to do, all workers must run a Bitshares node to earn the ‘delegated proof of stake’ rewards which make up their pay