FOMO on a Cryptocurrency Engineering Career? Industry Leader Helps You DecideFOMO on a Cryptocurrency Engineering Career? Industry Leader Helps You Decide

Let's face it: If you're curious about a technical job in the fast-paced world of cryptocurrency, your two main queries probably concern pay and the type of work. To answer those questions, Design News met with Adam Traidman, a former chip design engineer turned CEO of SoftBank Investment's (SBI's) ASIC chip mining subsidiary and SBI Ripple Asia, and former CEO of BRD, recently acquired by Coinbase. What follows is a portion of that interview.

John Blyler: Let's start by discussing the worth of a cryptocurrency engineering professional, i.e., someone who designs and implements the technology that powers cryptocurrencies. According to Glassdoor, a crypto engineer in the US can expect to earn an average total pay of around $168,819 per year with a base salary ranging from $101,000 to $182,000, depending on experience and location. The highest earners can reach up to $233,000 annually, although the numbers can be much higher for high-grade experts and location—e.g., $800k/year.

These high wages include a base salary, guaranteed bonus, restricted stock options (RSUs), and more. It sounds almost too good to be true for an engineer with the right technical qualifications, including in-depth knowledge of blockchain architecture, experience with multiple blockchain platforms, cryptographic protocols, front-end and back-end user interface development, and the like.

Related:Intel Enters Blockchain Market with New ASIC

Adam Traidman: Don't be too swayed by the big pay numbers. Crypto companies are not necessarily more generous in pay than working with similar technology for Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. The compensation amounts are similar. Big pay packages are common across the big crypto and high-tech companies.

In many ways, the lure of jobs in crypto is equivalent to those in AI, with this one exception: crypto is money, while AI is technology. In other words, AI will plateau at some point, just like every technology does. However, crypto potentially has no plateau as there are no physics limiting its development, unlike AI, where the width of the transistor limits its growth due to semiconductor power and performance constraints. There are no similar limits on crypto as it's virtual. 

In other words, cryptocurrency has become a self-sustaining bubble, just like the US dollar or any other global currency. But in some ways, cryptocurrency is stronger because it is supported by the entire world instead of just one country.

The takeaway is that money is the biggest business in the world, which is why a cryptocurrency engineering job would be a great career choice.

Related:How Much Energy is Consumed by Bitcoin Mining? The Answer Might Surprise You

Blyler: The very technical nature of the cryptocurrency space offers a wide range of engineering roles, particularly involving blockchain technology, cryptography, distributed systems, and financial infrastructure. Many jobs are similar to technical careers in other markets but require a crypto tech background. Here are but a few specific job examples:

Related:Elon Musk Betting Big on Bitcoin

What background is needed for an engineer interested in crypto tech?

Traidman: The skills needed to work in the crypto market are not trivial but are not out of the norm for most engineers. Any iOS and Android UI, protocol, and full-stack developers implementing databases and blockchain interfaces at Oracle or Google would qualify. Of course, they must understand crypto technology like Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc., but that's about it.

However, the higher compensations in crypto go to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and similar core developers or people who really understand cryptography and its cybersecurity aspects. Such expertise is needed to prevent hacks of large Bitcoin repositories.

Blyler: According to Google, markets hiring crypto-savvy engineers and related professionals include cryptocurrency exchanges (e.g., Binance, Coinbase, Kraken); blockchain protocols (e.g., Bitcoin Core, Ethereum Foundation); DeFi protocols (e.g., Uniswap, Aave, MakerDAO); NFT marketplaces (e.g., OpenSea, Rarible), and both blockchain startups (e.g., Polkadot, Chainlink) and enterprise-grade companies (e.g., IBM Blockchain, ConsenSys).

Is that a reasonable summary of job opportunities?

Traidman: Yes. In addition to technical work, there are plenty of jobs with companies that have custody of cryptocurrencies, such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, or Fidelity. These companies are willing to pay big salaries for cybersecurity guys, professionals with experience in IT and software development but with strong cryptography and cybersecurity backgrounds.

There are two market areas for crypto: academic and industrial research, startups and corporations. An example of the former is the forward-facing research on future technologies such as smart contracts on Ethereum. In cryptocurrency, a smart contract refers to a self-executing program stored on a blockchain that automatically carries out the terms of an agreement between parties without any human intervention. 

Most business activities in companies like Coinbase involve engineers developing user interface (UI) infrastructure and back-end databases using everyday tools like Amazon's AWS. Nothing too complex, but there's always a handful of highly prized professionals with PhDs and lots of experience who are cryptography experts.

Blyler: What is the outlook for chip design jobs in crypto mining?

Traidman: As you know, I was the CEO of one of Asia's largest Bitcoin mining and chip creation companies. We worked with companies like Intel and China's Bitmain. My experience from then to this day has taught me that anytime the price of crypto rises quickly, the "miners" always make an enormous amount of money. 

Adam Traidman, CEO of SBI Mining Chip subsidiary, holds up the company's previous-generation cryptocurrency mining ASIC. (Image Source: Adam Traidman, used with permission.)

The reason is that the original anonymous author of Bitcoin designed the software so that the complexity of the calculations goes up or down automatically based on how many miners are connected to the system. Basically, when the price of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies goes up dramatically, more miners have a significant incentive to become involved until the difficulty of the calculations catches up to the price. The fast upward velocity of crypto prices gives the miners their greatest return—as in the latter part of last year. 

Blyler: Great insights—thanks.