Debunking the “No jobs for Blockchain beginners” myth

How realistic is it to land a 6-figure blockchain developer job when you are a beginner?

Sometime it feels like nobody wants juniors…it feels like there is no hope… Well guess what, seniors started as juniors… so there must be a solution, right?

Let’s dive in!

Classical beginner mistake

Ok story time.

Let’s say you are a beginner:

• You start to be interested in crypto
• You follow some Youtube channels like Ivanontech or Coinbureau
• You start to checkout coinmarketcap every 5 minutes
• You start to buy some crypto. You make some nice profits… or not
• And you start to be more curious and Blockchain technology.

And one day on Youtube you stumble upon this weird guy, Julien from EatTheBlocks. And Julien from EatTheBlocks tells you that there are great career opportunities for Blockchain developers, even as a beginner.

And you start to think, ok, interesting, maybe I could do that. But before embarking on this journey, you want to some research:

• You go on some crypto job board, and then you are very surprised, because there are no positions for junior.
• Every job ad mentions SENIOR blockchain developers.

So you start to be worried, and you research the job market:

• And you find some very negative comments.
• On Reddit, on Youtube, on Twitter.
• You find people who also tell you, that yes it’s very difficult to find a job as a junior
• Some people tell you that they sent 100’s of applications and it didn’t work!

So what do you do? You give up. You are angry. One more scam. Ok let’s next try the next thing. Crypto trading. Or… back to web development.

But while you give up, some other people don’t give up. They work harder than you, and they do end up getting Blockchain jobs.

So what did you do wrong? Let’s address problems one by one.

Confirmation bias

The first problem is confirmation bias.

Once you believe that there are no jobs for juniors. Or once you have been rejected a couple of times. You still start to search for confirmation of your belief. And you will find other people who think like you.

But what you found is just a sample. It doesn’t represent the whole market. Don’t let it fool you.

False belief #1: No job for juniors

This lead us to the biggest fear of job seekers, which is: there are no job for juniors. Look, I get it.

It makes a lot of sense that if you don’t see job ad for juniors, there are no jobs for Juniors, right? I said it many times on this channel, but I will repeat it again today, because it’s very important:

Most of the job market is NOT on job board. Most of the job market is hidden.

And let me tell you why. Posting a job advertisement cost money. All those job boards charge companies to post. And usually you don’t post on one job board, you post the same ad on many website, so it can end up costing companies a lot. And it also takes time.

So in a lot of cases, especially for smaller companies, where you have the most jobs, they won’t ever bother to post anything.

What they do is just ask around to see if they can get some good candidates in their network.

For example, right now I am working for this customer for a smart contract project:

• They needed an extra developer.
• Since I know a lot of developer in my network, I proposed to help them.
• So I just sent the job description to the students who graduated from my bootcamp, and we found someone.
• It only took a few days, and this job offer never hit the official job market.

Most jobs are like this.So how can you hear about jobs like this? There are different ways to do it:

• You can either be active in some communities.
• You can go to events and meet people.
• You can work on interesting projects and post them on Github.
• And you can also be active on social media and build your personal brand, so that people come to you. This is how I met most of my customers.

And one last thing about junior jobs. Companies tend to exagerate their requirements when they post on job ads. For example if they say we want someone with 5y of experience. Maybe that 3 years of experience will be fine.

And in any case we cannot always quantity exactly by years of experience. Sometime someone with 3y of experience is better than someone with 6y of experience. So don’t be shy, apply anyway.

False belief #2: It’s too difficult to learn

It used to be difficult, yes.

When I started my channel in 2017 there was nothing, no learning resources. I was one of the first one. In the meantime:

• Plenty of learning resources that popped up
• A lot of them are very beginner friendly
• Some are free, some are paid.

So, yes you can learn Blockchain development.

As long as you don’t do core Blockchain development, Blockchain development is not too difficult:

• It’s mostly web development
• 10% of knowledge specific to Blockchain
  • how to interact with smart contracts
  • how to write smart contracts.

False belief #3: If it’s so easy, everybody would do it

Let’s break it down into 2 different notions: easy, and simple:

• Easy means without effort.
• And simple means without complication, meaning you don’t need to overthink it, there is a simple process.

Finding a Blockchain job is NOT easy, meaning you have to make some effort. Anything valuable in life requires some effort. And it’s a good thing, because once you get a job, you want to be protected.

You don’t want to be constantly afraid to lose your job because there is so much competition and everybody can do your job, like, let’s say, a Starbucks barista.

“Is it easy?”is not a good question. A better question is: is the effort worth it?

Well it depends:

• Do you enjoy programming?
• Do you enjoy crypto?
• Do you enjoy a job that is intellectually stimulating?
• Do you enjoy to work remotely?
• Do you enjoy to have a nice salary?

If those things matter to you, then yes it’s worth it. Otherwise, it’s not worth it. So that’s the first point, easy.

Now, when it comes to the second point, i.e is it simple to get a job, well yes in the sense that there is a clear, established process to find a job:

• You don’t need to solve a complex equation.
• You don’t need to be very creative.

It might not be fun to search for a job. You will have to do tasks that you don’t enjoy, like polishing your CV or sending job applications, but it’s not something intellectually challenging.

So no, it’s not easy to find a Blockchain job, but yes it’s simple.

False belief #5: Making 6-figure is not realistic for a beginner.

I get it, sounds a bit high.

In the US, the average salary for Blockchain developers is $150k. So if I tell you that for junior Blockchain developer in the US, you will make at least 100k, it sounds realistic, right? Ok, so we already fixed the problem for the US.

Now, what about the rest of the world? I personally got a 6 figure job as a junior, from a company in the UK, and that was in 2018, before the crazy covid inflation.

There are also some rich places, like Singapore, Switzerland, Dubai, where it’s possible to get a 6 figure job as a junior.

For the rest of the world, 6 figure as a junior is a bit high, but guess what. This is a global market. A lot of jobs are remote.They have to compete for talent globally, not locally.

And even if you don’t get a 6 figure salary, you will get a nice salary anyway. What if you make “only” 90k, 80k, or even 70k as a junior? So what? If you are just getting started, don’t obsess on the salary:

• What matters is the trajectory.
• What matters is the long-term career.
• What matters is to get started.

You WILL earn a lot as a Blockchain developer, IF you stick to it long-term.

Conclusion

Remember that Blockchain development is NOT rocket science:

• We will not ask you to develop a fusion reactor or create some vaccine
• We will ask you to build Blockchain apps, which are 90pct web development apps, with a thin layer of Blockchain integration
• The Blockchain is already built for you.

All you have to do is use the development tools that already exist. All you have to do is to use existing building blocks and combine them. If you like programming, if you like crypto, it’s doable. Not need to be a genius.

If you want to get started as a Blockchain developer developer, follow this free roadmap. You will learn the required skills, and you will discover what are the best opportunities in crypto. I have already done the research for you. It’s going to save you a few weeks of research on your own.