# Navigating the hiring landscape and breaking into Web3

- Channel: [ETH Warsaw](https://streameth.org/eth-warsaw)
- Date: 2026-03-25
- Duration: 50:31
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-LsLoXZfjTdg
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsLoXZfjTdg

## Transcript

And we're live. >> Awesome. >> Welcome everybody. Um hey, thanks for tuning in to um to our live session today. Um with me I have Camille and Owen. Thank you guys so much for agreeing to join us. And the topic for today is um career in web 3. Um right now going into web pre is very much different to what it was um couple of years ago, even a year ago. And um we want to explore a bit more um the steps you need to take before taking your first job in web 3. How to prepare, how to set yourself for um for success, where to apply, and how to tweak your resume in a way that this um this works. especially looking at the broader context of what's happening in the world right now. So, how to make your resume stand out in the age of AI, how to make yourself um useful to the company that you're applying to and how to make the best impression. Um let's start with a short introduction. Um Owen, could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Yes, thanks very much for having me and I'm great to be um speaking to you guys again and yeah um I guess recruiting in blockchain tech now for five over five years and had the privilege of helping a wide array of different projects from um L1s um DeFi projects, market makers, trading firms yeah pretty much a broad stack across multiple different disciplines from marketing BD um all the way through to various different um types of engineering roles um from solidity, rust, golang among others. So um yeah, no, looking forward to answering any questions today and yeah, always great to catch up. >> Thank you, Owen. Um Owen is also one of our speakers at um last year's C4 conference. Thank you again for um coming to speak to us again. Um Camille, uh you're my office mate, but could you tell us a bit about yourself? Uh sure. Um so I'm currently working as a um head of engineering at RAM network. Um I've been with uh crypto I would like to say this from very beginning. Uh my um dissertation at the university was actually about uh crypto in 2012. I still stayed with uh finance for uh for quite a while as well uh close to trading anything related to to to banking as well. Uh and yeah and I was really really um fascinated how um crypto uh kind of uh changed everything when it came to to finance and to to banking and and yeah since stayed since then and um and yeah progressing in in in in this area uh since then so almost 15 years now. >> Wow 15 years that's that's a long time. I wanted to say that since I got recruited to work into web pre things have changed but I guess it have changed significantly more since uh since the first time you um you got involved with uh with crypto. Um Owen, I have a first question to you. Um your dayto-day is hiring recruitment. Um right now, what's the real entry bar for someone um entering web free? Uh someone who wants to be a developer in web um in a web free company. Um how much do you actually need to know to be hireable in web free? What how much of an experience do you need to have with crypto in itself? Do you need to be a specialist um in that space? You need to be an active crypto user. How much do you actually need to know? >> Yeah, it's a very interesting time I guess in the crypto hiring market at the moment. Uh I guess the on one side of things I suppose the talent pool is a lot more diverse. Um multiple different backgrounds um whether it's um a lot more legal and finance people now. Um but I guess on the developer side of things on the crypton native side of things especially it has been a pretty difficult um couple of months for sure for a lot of um engineers. um a lot of major ecosystems have um restructured or laid off people and yeah so I would say that um yeah I would say that um and as well as that I guess a lot more mandates that are coming through tend to indicate a strong preference for urban centers like New York or London unfortunately um but I would definitely add that um there's a lot of innovation happening on the payment side of things and on the obviously the um stable kind side um as well. So um I guess um yeah there is still opportunities there. Um but um you know um I would say the bar is definitely significantly higher than it was >> a couple of years ago and even to your point even a year ago. Yeah. >> Yeah. with um the changes um that you've mentioned with a lot of companies going into um different mode um switching more towards enterprise um which roles do you see growing in demand and which are less um uh important right now? >> Yeah. So I guess in terms of I suppose in terms of marketing the landscape has improved um or um kind of changed drastically over the last um number of months. Um I guess things like social media roles um marketing roles generally speaking have struggled a lot. Um and I guess in the I guess one area of marketing that has done um pretty pretty well is um product marketing and BD is also very very strong partnerships is very strong um uh yeah but and yeah there is obviously still developer roles um especially in the Salan ecosystem going very well as well. Yeah. Um, with those marketing and social media roles, how much experience in crypto specific do they need? Because at some point this was, um, I remember doing marketing and and and and web 3 and this is very much focused about on your ability to follow trends and being, you know, ever present on crypto Twitter and, you know, being able to c to to catch those those viral trends. So um how much actual crypto knowledge you need to have to become a web free uh marketer or social media person? >> Yeah, so the the game has changed I suppose to a large degree over the last few months in crypto marketing for sure. Um I guess retail has left the room and it's um very much enterprise focused now and um revenue generating um focus and yeah I guess the thing like um running on hype um isn't it it that that playbook no longer works. Um so again um a lot of the roles out there at the moment tend to be focused on product marketing um and actually acquiring real actual customers rather than actual um pump our bags um customers because um that like that that area of crypto is definitely um yeah like attracting token holders um or speculators and from a marketing perspective those roles don't really exist anymore to a large degree. Yeah. Or at least for the time being anyway. Well, cryptogoing enterprise is this this one magical thing that everybody really wanted for a long time and then we have it and it's not exactly as we as we expected to be and I think that's going to translate very much to what kind of roles will be in demand for the next few um for the next few years. Um that will um effectively mean that a lot of people doing uh working already at uh big enterprises at big fintech companies will have to get themselves um up to speed on um what's blockchain and how to use that and generally how how you want to um um how you want to implement that in your in your workflow. And I'm pretty sure that um quite a lot of them um will opt for um like quick conversation with cloud or chat GPT. Hey teach um do you think this is possible to um do you think it's possible to um rely on AI when building um blockchain products? And I want to direct this question to to Camil because um before we went live we talked about how blockchain is not really um how blockchain is still like standing um strong against the um AI uh movement. Maybe not against but um block building blockchain stills require more work um than other um areas and AI is not necessarily as much helpful here as in other places it would be. Yes, that's correct. Um, it's not really um the best one in in in this area and it's particularly because um AI is a pattern matching tool in in the end like it it kind of accelerates what you can do with it but it needs to learn on something um and because there's the market is relatively new. I mean of course it been with us for for a couple of years already um but it's not such a big community um in comparison to other areas like web development and and so on um so it doesn't really have places where it can uh learn right and I think in in that regard web 3 is kind of um secured in terms of the in terms of the AI um making a big impact here um because it's simply uh make mistakes uh it can do basic basic stuff, right? It can write basic smart contracts, but that's basically it. And if we look at the fact that everything going in enterprise and and uh it getting more um requires more governance and and and kind of audit going through audits and stuff like that. It that basically means that um there is no room for mistake and there's no room foration, right? As as I as AI likes to do. So um yeah, I think I think AI is great and can help with many things and definitely can speed up the development even in the web free market and and products for sure because there are certain areas like writing tests and things like that where it can help but it's definitely not going to write you a secure uh contract and and uh be auditable by by professionals um that that can simply spot the mistakes that that that are there And it's not going to prepare you for, you know, um it's not going to make you not vulnerable. It's going to be definitely be the case that it's it's it's not going to be secured enough uh for companies to actually trust it. Uh and I think it's going to have like it's going to be like that for for quite a while still. in the age of um copilot and other tools that um significantly help you build your applications um what um skills do you both um feel are important um in building your resume right now is it ability to um cross check what's being done for you by by AI or is it something else maybe let's start with Owen >> and yes not from the development perspective >> yeah I'm not quite sure what the question is exactly, but I guess I always say that um AI should be um um like it should be used to help you, not do your job for you, I suppose, especially at the moment. Um yeah, like obviously um people have like for for example, companies generally don't have any problem with candidates using AI for take-home assignments. Um but if it's purely if it's purely all AI well then there's a problem for example. So again AI is an aid not a crutch and um again it should be always treated in accordingly in that in that respect I feel. Um so yeah um I guess from an engineering point of view like even spoke to a guy this morning who um uses AI because there's a lot of um I guess tech debt in his firm and it kind of helps him speed up his process of working for example. So again that's maybe an maybe it's probably an example where AI can be um helpful um in terms of speeding up work and help helping helping aid his um dayto-day and helping him speed up. But um yeah, no curious to know obviously came I think from an engineering point of view is obviously more qualified answer in that respect. Yeah. >> Yeah. No, I I definitely agree. Um uh it should be a kind of magnifier or or or accelerator of what you do, right? So uh for sure if you if you don't use AI then you make a big mistake. But if you use it for everything and you think it's going to solve all your problems, this is also a big mistake, right? So um you still require you still required as a developer to to think uh to to take ownership of things to to make make uh things work right and uh of course you can write your code yourself but you can also use AI to to to make it uh faster. Um and I think this is the kind of skill like a collaboration of those skills is something what what uh people are will be looking in in especially junior devs right because you need to uh you still need to be able to to deliver but you can do it um way faster right now and need to uh utilize those tools for sure. >> Yeah. Um you mentioned junior devs and I think we've um all been a part of the discussion where um to some extent the position of a junior dev might be eliminated just because um the uh tools like pilot or cloud cork um are there to do the job of someone who's a bit more junior um in such landscape in such environment how do you um what would be your first thing What would be your um first project to do um if you were a junior dev today Camilu and wanted to apply for um for a job in a web free um web free company how would you approach that >> you yourself >> yeah um I think it's important to um I I don't think this significantly changed from from from the past right like I mean the the the best companies always are looking for uh proactive people that stay close to the market uh stay close with the trends and and understand what's actually happening in the in the area. Um so I think this is kind of the the the biggest difference like the before there was a lot of uh demand for developers that everyone kind of can could sleep through, right? Uh but that's not not no longer the case. Like you're actually looking for people that um are passionate about the the web 3 and blockchain, understands it, uh stay close to it, understand the trends, understand what's going on, how the market evolves. Um and I think those are the key key things that you need to um be aware of. Like if if if I will be looking at some someone's resume, I'm going to I'm going to look if into those area. I can accept the fact that someone is junior but if um if if they don't stay close to to what is happening and don't follow the the trends um don't build things um as well around it like I think this is kind of the the biggest differentiator right now that I always be looking into into someone's GitHub or GitLab to see if they develop uh even simplest projects but like from web three and they are already building the understanding of of the technology. I think this is kind of the biggest differentiator >> and that's going to be a little bit off um of the list but how do you um Owen um we talked about um evaluating someone's interest in in web free and this being an important factor in the decision whether to hire them or not. How do you evaluate someone's interest in the in the space for for a junior person? They're allowed to not know everything just yet, but what makes you see that this person is truly interested in building in um in web three? They're they they want to follow the ecosystem and they really want to stay there for um for to build something important. >> Yeah. So, yeah. Um I guess I look for proof. Um it's very easy for someone to say they're passionate and want to learn more, but where's the proof? Um so for example if it was somebody in Warso um I'd be asking have they met with you guys? Have they gone to any local meetups things like that? Are they involved in um yeah and also like have they done any kind of um supplementary courses? Have they participated in maybe some hackathons maybe be it virtually or in person? And yeah, um just I I like I love kind of helping people that ultimately have shown um community involvement um and also kind of um proven that they're passionate because um I guess not so much now, but in um in when times are going good and when the Bitcoin price is going through the roof, it's very easy to get a lot of speculative kind of people reaching out saying, "I want to work in this industry." But um obviously they're not there. They're yeah they're yeah it's it's their yeah their their interest can be quite dubious at times. Whereas the interesting thing about now is that the people that actually do reach out and are looking to get into the space a lot more and get um they actually are genuinely generally in the main um very very interested and come with um proof of credentials come with prior proof of interest as well be it um some courses be it some um hobby projects be some hackathon involvement um various different things like that a small portfolio um yeah so there are things I look out for um yeah general proof pro of interest and if there is kind of a I guess the good thing that I can help is that if I know if somebody really kind of impresses me kind of and shows that proof of interest well if I know somebody very well at such and such a project that they may be relevant to I can then make a friendly introduction and say um yeah so like that's kind of how a lot of people get started they kind of see a project that has um maybe done a small raise or has a small team and say listen I like what you do can I help you out a few hours a week and then it's still a global village So they can kind of Yeah. one one one good word leads to another good word and the chain continues. Yeah. >> Well, my next question was whether uh participation in community is important. I think we got that covered. Community is important. Um so let me take um this um opportunity to tell our audience about the boot camps that E4so is launching right now. So um for some time at E4so we've been um looking at the state of the market looking at the growing demand for um skills and blockchain tech um across traditional enterprises and um fintech companies. Um and we feel like there's not enough um on-site ERL courses that can get you up to speed with the latest news in blockchain tech. And we wanted to fix that um fix that issue. wanted to bridge the gap especially for the junior devs that we've been um talking about um make it more possible for them to land their first job in in crypto and this is why we've prepared the E4 so uh boot camps um where they can go from zero to their first working um DAP um it's a series of um six um workshops three or four hour long um all um ERL or all um hands-on sessions with um practitioners. Um and at the end of the of the program, you will end up with at least a few dabs in your um in your GitHub, something that you can um show to your future um future employees as um both a proof of interest and also a proof of um a proof of skills. And we're going to um um add a discount code for um for the boot camps. So if you watch it, you can type in the code live and then you get a discount for the um um for the event. Okay, that thank you for for the this break for commercials and let's go back to um the discussion that we've um that we've um paused for for a second here. So, um during a boot camp like the one that we're organizing, you will end up with a few apps um um in your uh portfolio um that you can share to um share with an employer or share with company that you're applying to. Um what other skills do you think a blockchain developer should be work like a future blockchain developer should be working on to make sure to land the job in um web 3? And um it's partially about the tech skills that you should be developing, but also about the certain um um skills outside of, you know, strict blockchain tech. And we've talked a little bit about being able to use AI to your advantage and but not relying on it um on it fully. I wonder if you could tell me what how do you see this perfect portfolio for someone applying let's say for a job in um at ramp like cameo how would you um see the portfolio of um of this person if you're hiring someone right now. >> Sure. So um the way the way I like to think about it is um because AI can technically do do the uh gen junior role right the junior development um the line between uh meat engineer and junior engineer is is is much thinner because technically you are technically right you arrive at a job and you you already know you already can do your job as a junior because AI does it for you right so um and I think it's not only related like to junior people but meet uh engineers and and senior engineers as well. Um you want to accelerate as like how you work right how you how you develop stuff and how you uh ship products. Um and therefore you basically need a set of skills that will guide AI right it's not going to write itself um you actually need to guide it and the better you guide it through uh the better job it does right in the end. So I think that the ideal portfolio here um of a junior person is like the the line between junior and senior is going to be thinner uh because the way I see it people uh are senior roles are basically taking ownership they can take responsibility of what they deliver and I think it's going to it's going to shift towards junior developers as well. So the expectation will be there that they can not only deliver stuff but also like take responsibility of their own ownership of what they what they do. And to do that on the soft skill side they also have have to have those hard skills right which is uh understanding the system design um architecture of the of the system, understanding the blockchain technology uh and so on. And because because of that like if you arrive at as a junior you can already kind of develop things with with the help of AI. Um and if you like if you look at the old school let's call it old school kind of way of progression. When you started you were just responsible to write some tests uh fix some bugs and and ship basic things you know those kind of things. at the med level you already were kind of building bigger things and then on as a senior you were actually able to to take ownership of end to end delivery of things um and I think it's going to kind of u accumulate together in the end for even starting from the junior ro so you actually need to be uh showing those soft skills of being proactive taking ownership uh being able to deliver from from end to end even simple simplest things uh but making sure you actually you actually do those things. Um, and you don't have you're not going to just write a rubbish code, but you actually can already do much better job if you know how the architecture works, how you can improve those things, how we can navigate um AI to build it good from the very from the very beginning. Uh, and I think that's going to be the the the biggest difference um here for if someone can contribute to that from the day one even with AI with AI especially with AI then that that would be a great asset. So, it's boils down to using AI as um a support that you're using, but it's still not going to replace your creativity, your drive and the fact that you want to be want to be doing um want to be working on this and I want to be doing that. >> Precisely. Yes. I I think this is going to be I think this is going to be the case like you are going to be more of a of a designer of what's what's needs to be written rather than than just uh writing the code itself. But like you still need to take the ownership of what's being delivered. Yeah. >> That kind of changes the understanding behind hard skills because it it softens the hard skills. >> Yes. >> You can delegate the um coding part to to an agent that you build. Um but you still need to be able to take responsibility of what your agent has built and also be able to present that to the company and just take that um opport like take this you know additional power that you've got um thanks to your your model into um into an actual product. So it very much changes the the perception of um a developer in general. I think it's going to um force people to become way more social, way more active. And now it makes me think that during those boot camps we should maybe add like a social panel to that as well like being able to advocate your uh your ideas your your uh your plans to to the team. >> I think definitely uh that that would be that would be valuable. I mean in the end I think everyone is going to move towards being like a product engineer rather than just just engineer. Um, and you need to be a product engineer, you need to have a good communication skills and you need to be able to talk to people because there's going to be more stakeholders, entities within organization that you need to that you need to talk to uh and communicate your needs and and get the requirements and and understand what needs to be u built and navigate through this. >> Do you see this um um shift already in your recruitment processes? >> Yeah, I know. Um for sure. Um I guess a lot more um like hackathons now um a lot of the people that are participating um are coming more so from multiple different backgrounds um non-coding backgrounds participating and it's really really interesting to see. So they're bringing their insights from the business world into um the coding world and of course they're um yeah of course um is bringing a lot more innovation into the tech scene not only in blockchain tech but also in um um yeah quote unquote web 2 as well. So um I do think that as well like um that yeah like again you summarized it perfectly well um there that um yeah it'll um the hard skills will be softened over um a period of time and that's um yeah again there'll be a lot more social element as well and I guess if teams are working globally remote it'll require um a lot more kind of um communicability as well. So um yeah, no um for sure. Um again, I think that um you guys summarized it way better than I ever could, but um it's great to see for example in um hackathons um um a lot more diverse background of people um participating for sure and um AI obviously has a huge um bearing on that. Yeah. >> Yeah. um in the E4so hackon that we posted last year um something that we added only this year as one of the criteria for evaluating the product was the the business model and the delivery and was the first time that we actually allowed teams to pitch their um ideas um ideas live and this kind of like prompted us to um to run a workshop on hey actually how do you pitch your ideas and it's not really it's right Now I feel that the skill to pitch your idea is relevant not just to founders and to um and to entrepreneurs but basically to everybody because you need to be able to present the thing that you did with um present the thing that um that you did the idea that you have um and that um and that just signifies the fact that hard skills are no longer um everything that you need to land a job. need that certain social component. Um, and it's not really something that have been um that important before. We have this like very very big division between I'm just a software developer person. I don't like to talk to people and now you have this know brilliant um you have this like um kind of perfect situation where they can talk exclusively to Claude or Chhatti or Gemini Copile whatever um and then you tell them hey this is very good but this is not what we're asking of you hey please talk to the team please talk to the management communicate with your with your co-workers and so on I think it's going to um change it's going to annoy a lot of I think so. Um there was definitely a space before for both um type of types of people, right? the people that like to um work quietly in kind of in in the corner and and there was definitely space for those kind of people as well in the companies for a very long time uh bringing value and there was always a space for people that wanted to contribute um more broadly within the company right and I think I think it's going to I think it's going to kind of um like disappear uh or it's already disappearing I would say um because again you will have you will need to have much broader skills than be just um technically um native, right? You you will need to actually be able to to to help build products, not just write the code itself by yourself. I I still think that blockchain has um especially blockchain space still has some breathing room for those very introvert people because as you mentioned at the beginning it's one of the techs that are not that um easily replaced with AI like right now still the security of um um code code like smart contract codes written by by is questionable. this doesn't really go um um well with with bigger enterprises, bigger companies, and it doesn't really um mark, you know, all the green boxes uh during the the audits. Um so I think we're still going to have a lot of need for someone to sit very quietly, introvertly in their cubicle and verify the uh the code very um in an old fashioned way. But I guess it's there's a there's a timeline on that. It's not going to be like this um um all the time. the more advanced we are um on that intersection of AI and blockchain, the more difficult it will be to um identify which code was written by an agent and which was written by um by a person. Um but until then we still have a lot of demand for people who are uh not that happy talking to others and want to focus on writing code predominantly. >> Cool. Um, one more thing to um to ask you um in right now if you're um if you have someone who is just starting their journey with um with um web free development um realistically how long do you think it's going to take them to get up to speed uh to I would say advanced junior level so like not a not someone who has had experience but someone who is hirable right now? Is 6 weeks enough? Do you need more? Is one afternoon enough? >> Um just if I can jump in there like um I guess to be um like a friend of mine always says it um to be a good blockchain engineer, you also need to be a good software engineer as well. So um depends on the basis that they're coming from. Um but yeah um I would say that probably I I always say like people looking to get into the space um explore it before you jump in fulltime especially if it's a if you're if you're kind of aspiring to go for maybe a more cryptonator project um I guess we're at that intersection now where kind of a lot of the blockchain industry is dissolving into general tech but um if you're looking kind of more for a more kind of cryptonative um type project I would kind advise people to explore it first and kind of just do maybe an hour or two a week pro bono work and see if it's for you. And if it is for you, then your interest will naturally um um accelerate um in the first few months. And it really depends on the individual um themselves and their willingness to learn um I've seen people get up to speed um from a very low basis in a year. And I've Yeah. Um I've seen people that um say they're kind of um hobby coders, but um have it's questionable as to whether they are or not. Yeah. So um it it really does depend on kind of like the great thing about this industry historically has been that um it has allowed people to pivot from multiple different careers. Um like I've seen marketers become developers and I've seen even things like policemen become social media marketers and things like that. Like I've seen people do complete pivots um in their careers. Um so you're in the right industry if you really do want to pivot. Um but yeah, it depends on how passionate you are that you want to succeed. And I suppose that's like hunting in life. I suppose. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think they're like jumping from different disciplines, you get different advantages. There's a lot of people jumping into crypto from finance. And I think this is super important to have that deep understanding of how the financial system works. um that translates into great results when building um stuff in Web 3 because you you understand what you're building. And that's very often um a problem with um new joiners from just traditional um um software engineering that they don't um know that much about financial systems and what they're going into is a deeply complex financial system. Um, and I think that knowledge is something that very often goes a miss when you do blockchain courses and boot camps is that you focus entirely on the tech, but without understanding the economical context, you don't really know what you're building. >> Yeah, that's absolutely fine. That's absolutely correct. Um and I think I think one one trend that that I'm observing which wasn't the case for sure for I think never actually um it was easy for for developers before for software engineers to actually move between the the markets. It was easy to to go from I don't know logistics to finance from finance to any other thing. Um because in the end it was you need to you just needed to to understand the tech and be able to to ship things right. Um and that was required from you. You didn't have to understand actually the market that you're joining. And I think this is going to change a lot like people will be required to like the better you understand the market you are joining and you are working on is is is going to be crucial as well. Like we we actually going to start looking into how much knowledge of the finance you have, how much you have spent. Like if you if you're migrating from you know one one area to another, it's not going to it's not going to give you any any any help. um is not going to be helpful for sure because um you need to start understanding the market to make to be able to ship good products and to and to actually be able to build those those products um in the kind of long um a long-term way. Um yeah, I think I think it's going to be it's going to be very crucial. >> This um translates very well into other um uh jobs as well. Same applies to marketing. If you want to do well in crypto marketing, understand um the market that you're going into. It's not enough just to be able to uh build um campaigns and to build content. You need to understand what you're actually trying to convey. And same applies to software development, especially in um especially when you're applying um in a job um applying for a job in a startup where very very often software engineer is by definition a part of the product team. like you're you're expected to contribute. You're expected to give your opinion about hey I don't think that connection to this particular particular wallet system um works maybe we should switch chains and so on so on. So I think having that um ability to um understand the um uh your product deeply is a is a massive bonus um when you're when you're getting recruited. >> I agree. Uh definitely I think this is this is going to be this is going to be crucial. Um and like coming back to your previous question, how much time you you need to actually be able to to um to land a job and and how much you need to learn uh everything about blockchain and join a web free company. Um I think it's very important what Owen said is that it's a difficult and different market. So make sure you actually want to join and not just joining you just not to join it because you you um because you think it's it's it's fancy or or whatever right it's it's difficult uh market it's very interesting one it's it's very uh uh it's definitely different different thing like it's like for example the community that that um blockchain has and crypto has is is outstanding um but you need to make sure that you can you can you want to go uh through this uh because it's challenging at times for sure it's going to be more regulated. So I think staying for like like from my perspective like if I would have to hire someone I think I would look like if someone contributed to the the kind of ecosystem for like I don't know 12 months for example build something uh there's you know GitHub and GitLab all those kind of tools when you can actually prove that you were building something that you stayed um stay up with the uh with the market stayed up with the trends you build something you ship you actually experience the the struggle right at least in some extent uh and I think this is going to be extremely helpful if you if you're looking for a for a job in in in web 3. >> When looking at this proof of interest and and um like the tools that you've built versus academic background, what do you think is more important right now? >> Oh, you want to take that? >> Yeah, sure. Yeah. No, I guess um it really does um it really does depend. I guess um I suppose as the industry is going through this maturation phase, I would say the institutional factors are becoming a lot more important. Um so for example maybe two three years ago I would have said hands down without a shadow of a doubt um proof of interest is a lot more important and still is obviously more important but um I think the gap is um becoming a lot more um narrower and yeah I guess um yeah I guess um yeah like there'll never be a substitute for participation um in my own opinion but um yeah I would say that academic background is um is becoming becom a lot more um prevalent I would say as the industry matures and um I suppose as um like the industry as it I suppose there's been a lot of um fintex getting involved more in the space and I guess um a lot of consolidation as well and um I guess um a lot a lot more companies hiring now are a lot more risk averse so that that um le that education maybe come can sometimes unfold >> good and bad I suppose um can be seen as um yeah like like it's it's an extra level of assurance I suppose is perceived for some um employers but um I um that's the great thing about this industry historically that always motiv was one of a great motivate fats for me to become a lot more involved in it is because um people could look beyond a lot more one physical location and secondly um um one's um academic um background and it gave the people the opportunity as I said earlier to completely pivot their careers if they demonstrated a proof of interest. Um, yeah. So, yeah, >> that story written at Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. >> Yeah. No, no. I was just saying this is really interesting that I'd never thought um that the university background and like kind of education in this in is going to be helpful. Um um because if you if you look at previous years, it wasn't like the case, right? Um a lot of people were hiring. you didn't have to have like um you know technological background or anything like this to to be hired and I think that was interesting what you said because I I see the same like more and more actually industries are looking into and companies are looking into into the into those kind of backgrounds but I think um I think it's mainly the matter that because of um of university that actually catching up like there was no you know um crypto blockchain you know study at universities before it was more generic IC right so it wasn't really it was helpful but it wasn't like it didn't have a huge impact um but yeah I think both both things going to be uh very much relevant and important in in the near future >> um what would you recommend to a person who's looking to um jump in should they look for a job in a startup that built something in the web3 space or should they target a bigger company an enterprise that wants to add a blockchain component to what they're doing. Owen, do you want to take it? >> Yeah, sure. Um, again, I just I I I don't like to give you generic answers, but um it it it does come back down to one's personal risk appetite. Um, for example, and what I'm noticing a lot more among people that are working in the crypto industry is that um I suppose they're growing up. they're kind of um entering know like they're a lot of the community people working in the space are kind of they're becoming a lot less um risk off they're becoming a lot more appreciative of maybe mature businesses and and I suppose they don't they don't they want kind of a bit more stability in their professional careers um and yeah it again it generally does depend on one's um risk appetite now if you're joining a company um like an exchange with 2,000 employees, well, you're not going to be you're not going to create um gener generational um wealth um working for that company realistically. Whereas, if you joined a um a a promising project um in DeFi or prediction markets, wherever it may be, well, then that opportunity um to um to do well and create arguably a greater impact on the world um is um is is greater. But again with that comes a greater level of risk. Um I guess yeah but again I a lot of the crypto community now I guess over the last kind of year or two especially um and I guess there is macro reasons for this as well but a lot of the crypto people now they're kind that I've kind of historically worked with over the last number of years. They're grown up there certain families I guess they're more their risk appetite has changed. Um I guess um they have no interest in kind of taking a lesser salary or less interest in taking a a lesser salary for a greater token upside for example. And I guess I think stability um and an element of job security is um a lot more appreciated um among crypto professionals now compared to what it used to be. Um I think people still know the rules of the game that it can't be guaranteed within this industry and even it could be the case that you join a crypto startup and that crypto startup then gets acquired and then they do restructuring and then you're fired as well. So there is no the only certainty in crypto is that working in crypto is that there is no certainty and um yeah maybe I'm sorry I'm giving a long answer to that question there. Sorry. >> Yeah, there's um there's a high high risk premium um in that >> for sure industry. Um I think BMAP is also a good example. Um on one side um still um still a startup on the other side uh competing with international fintex and on the risk perspective it's kind of on both ends like on one side it's still a startup you know it can fail and so on the other side it's grown upish enough that it gives you know the job stability and security. So I think there's um if you're a um junior dev looking for for for opportunities, I think you can um you can take your pick. You will have options both in the D5 space and uh the startup space and in the more enterprise space but they will have different requirements and the processes will be vastly different that the getting hired at a at a startup can take you um 15 minutes or one talk during the conference or uh two hour long calls and then getting hired in a um an enterprise can can be a month-long process or or even longer. So, I guess you need to weigh in how much you want to risk, how much um you value job security, how much time you have, and what's your um um I guess what's your what's your preference for how your life's going to look like for the next few years. >> Yeah, for sure. I think I think um I would recommend something in the middle between those two. Uh so you have actually the exposure to things that are happening which you don't have in the enterprise and the kind of size of the company. So you can actually contribute to what's going to what's going on within the company and with the product and you can actually have the exposure of like much clearer exposure to um to what you can build and have an impact on this. Um but on the other side you don't have this like a very early startup risk uh of of uh of failure or running out of budget and and those kind of things. So um I I think it it depends on your risk appetite but if you're like not sure then try to find something in in the middle. Uh if you want to go fast with your learning and and grow uh fast as well as a developer and as a as a person that contributes to and make an impact within the company then I think it's it's going to be hard to find something like that in the enterprise company. Uh but like a middlesized company would be would be perfect for a for a startup. >> Cool. Luckily there's a lot of companies precisely in that um in in that spectrum. A lot of the companies that uh were started right around the time that I joined are now in that um matured state where you can actually um benefit from the stability but it's still not as corporate as um um uh as the big teams. Um, so luckily there's still a lot of opportunities in there and I think this is a great way to um kickstart your career in fintech and eventually land in those enterprise jobs because they very often they um source people from that web three um startup space. They're looking for someone with hands-on experience in building things that they can take that startup energy into this corporate landscape and shake things up a little bit but also move them u make them move um faster. Um perfect I thank you guys so much for uh for talking to me today. Um I think one learning that I have from this is that um transition transition from hard skills into softer skills. I think in the um age of AI, it's super important to um remember that you need to understand how the tech around you works, but if you're not able to communicate that to people, it's not going to be a um you're not going to be be able to stand out um from from other candidates. Um I want to remind everybody that uh you still have to test and audit your blockchain code. Uh, make sure you don't push everything that uh, Copilot produces. Make sure you test it. Um, run it by um, run it by someone who knows um, how to how to do it. And if you want to learn how to do it, um, sign up for the boot camp courses that E4so is hosting. Um, we're going to post the link to the discount um, under this live. And Camille Owen, thank you so much for uh, for joining. It was a pleasure talking to you and hopefully see you soon. >> Thank you very much for having me. >> Thanks. Have a good day. Byebye.