Would you work at a crypto startup?

Question

I currently work at a crypto startup (https://dydx.exchange/) and we're having issues finding engineers to interview with us, specifically backend / smart contract engineers. From my perspective, I'm not sure why we can't find engineers; dYdX is one of the top decentralized exchanges in crypto and is doing ~$4B in trading volume per day with a current annualized revenue of ~$800M per year (profit margin of 75%). Offers are competitive with FAANG and we are remote friendly.Given the above, I'm worried that we can't find engineers because they don't want to work for a crypto startup. From your perspective, would you work at a crypto startup? If no, then what would it take to change your mind?

MattGaiser · Accepted Answer

I would consider it, but my challenge is that I don’t know the space well enough to distinguish between a quick money scam and a legitimate company.
I have a decent high level technical understanding of what blockchain is, the various proof protocols, some use cases, etc.
Where things fall apart for me are when I don’t have the slightest clue of what the business model is as I don’t know all the pieces involved in the ecosystem. Some may be genuine infrastructure companies, but others have no idea and are just promising the world + Mars.
I get a bunch of crypto recruiting emails, and so many of them remind me of the initial coin offerings that were popular a few years ago. The last one talked about being the crypto of consciousness. Many talk about bringing crypto to the masses with yet another coin. Another has little to say about anything other than how it will change the world as we know it as transform how humans live their lives.
So probably the biggest challenge with getting me to interview for a crypto startup would be quickly demonstrating that this isn’t a coin in search of a problem or outright scam before I lost interest in reading the invite to interview and throwing you in the bin with the others. If you put the $4 billion in trading volume in your recruitment pitch, it would be enough for me to look a bit harder, as that proves there is at least some legitimate business there.

stonecharioteer · Answer

I work at a Crypto startup. I'm facing similar issues getting friends to join the company, even though we have funding. But it's a mix of "don't want to work at a startup" and "crypto is snake oil".We just do crypto analytics, and we aren't a wallet service, so while our domain is crypto, the work is largely writing CRUD apps and pipelines in airflow. While I'm trivializing the work, the nature is largely this. It's the same everywhere, really. I wonder if everyone things crypto companies = Cryptocurrency = snake oil. It's sad really. There are some amazing problems in this space that need all the brightest developers it can get.

sidcool · Answer

No. I don't understand it well enough. So far with the limited knowledge I have, it seems like a decentralised ponzi scheme.

atarikraken · Answer

curious, why isn't the job listed at https://dydx.foundation/careers?

jiveturkey · Answer

competitive with FAANG based on actual take home TC? or based on non-risk-adjusted series C options?with analysis like https://www.coinspeaker.com/is-new-defi-star-dydx-the-real-d... i'm not surprised it's hard to hire.