There is a shortage of tech (and female) crypto talent: report it

The supply of engineering and information technology talent in the blockchain industry is not meeting demand.

The maturing digital asset markets have shifted company needs to technical roles – especially when it comes to security – according to a new study by crypto exchange OKX and LinkedIn.

Financial talent accounts for 19% of the blockchain-focused workforce, the report found. Engineers have a 16 percent share. and business development, information technology, and sales personnel each accounted for about 6 percent.

The analysis includes LinkedIn research samples covering 180 countries from January 2019 to January 2022.

The most sought-after are crypto traders, software engineers, analysts, support analysts and account managers – who come with relatively high compensation.

But the financial sector ranked sixth in hiring demand since June, according to LinkedIn job postings. Instead, as companies are building blockchain capabilities, people in the fields of engineering and information technology are most excited, followed by professionals in product management, marketing and human resources.

The study examined both crypto-native companies and traditional entities vying to establish a digital asset base.

The fastest growing title was for “Quality Assurance Analyst” with 713% growth from June 2021 to June 2022. Cryptologic technicians and compliance specialists grew by 350% and 253%, respectively, growing by 350% and 253%. That width.

“The blockchain industry is transitioning from highly financial to highly technical,” the report said. It takes full advantage of blockchain’s combination of technical and financial features to gradually grow into an important part of the digital economy.

Emily Landon, CEO of Crypto Recruiters, told Blockworks that her company is seeing many requests for marketing, investor relations and developer roles — including front-end developers as well as programming languages ​​Rust and Solidity.

But finding technical talent is becoming more difficult because candidates aren’t always marketing themselves well on LinkedIn, she added. Others have deleted their LinkedIn accounts because of spam from recruiters, Landon says, instead flocking to Twitter and Discord.

“It makes it challenging to get them on those platforms,” ​​Landon said. “Essentially, these developers have become anonymous.”

Other numbers at a glance

According to LinkedIn data, the total number of platform members working in the blockchain industry grew by 76 percent year-to-date through June. America is the largest space operator, followed by India and China.

In terms of job postings, demand for blockchain-related talent is concentrated in the United States, China, France, India and Germany.

The average tenure of global blockchain talent is 1.2 years, the report says. In addition to people entering the space from financial and technology companies, the industry’s talent flow is primarily from within the classroom.

Despite the year-by-year growth, overall, female talent remains scarce. According to the report, the class has about four times as many men as women.

“[We’ve had] “It’s a very difficult time, especially to get women in space,” Landon said. We want to help more women get into technical roles.

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