Careers and practice.
WHAT ROLES EXIST
Contract development Protocol and infrastructure engineering Security and auditing Application development Product and design Compliance Research
WHAT CONTRACT DEVELOPMENT REQUIRES
Programming skill, and unusual rigour about correctness.
WHY
Errors are financial and permanent.
WHAT AUDITING REQUIRES
Deep understanding of vulnerability classes, and of how attackers think.
WHY IT IS WELL COMPENSATED
The consequences of missing something are very large.
WHAT INFRASTRUCTURE WORK INVOLVES
Running nodes, indexing, and supporting systems.
WHAT TRANSFERS FROM OTHER SOFTWARE WORK
Most engineering skill.
WHAT DOES NOT
Assumptions about being able to fix things later.
WHAT THE SECTOR IS LIKE
Volatile, with employment following market cycles Substantially remote Containing both serious work and outright fraud
WHAT THAT LAST POINT DEMANDS
Judgement about who to work for.
WHAT TO ASSESS BEFORE JOINING ANYTHING
Whether the product has users Whether revenue exists beyond token sales Whether the team is identifiable Whether you would be comfortable explaining the work
WHAT TO AVOID
Projects whose economics depend on new participants.
WHAT TO BUILD
Demonstrable work: audited contracts, tools, or contributions to established projects.
