How to Kickstart Career in DeFi?

Aspiring to start a career in DeFi? Follow this comprehensive guide to kickstart your DeFi career and land your dream job.

If you have been following the blockchain news closely, you must have come across the term DeFi. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is basically a new approach to the decentralization of the conventional financial industry. The basic objective of DeFi is an environment where everyone has access to traditional financial services. DeFi aims to leverage the blockchain infrastructure to create a permissionless ecosystem of financial services. Therefore, the demand for a career in DeFi has also been increasing profoundly in recent times. However, it is difficult to find appropriate guidance regarding career prospects in DeFi, considering the fact that it is new. The following discussion aims to offer you a brief guide on steps in the DeFi career journey of an individual.

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The Growth of DeFi

Decentralized Finance has witnessed staggering levels of growth in recent times while turning into a crucial aspect of the blockchain landscape. Therefore, DeFi has also opened up many career opportunities, especially for developers. The continuously growing interest in decentralized finance, especially on behalf of regional and national governments, institutional investors, futures traders as well as curious users, has been one of the prominent factors in increasing the demand for DeFi jobs. Most important of all, there has been prominent growth in demand for blockchain developers in the DeFi sector. Aspiring developers could look for opportunities at DeFi developer jobs in some unique groundbreaking projects in the DeFi sector.

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Start with Understanding Decentralized Finance

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) solutions are blockchain solutions tailored to resemble the functionality of traditional financial products or instruments. The foremost answer for ‘how to get a job in DeFi’ would obviously refer to the definition of DeFi. Even if DeFi projects could have different variants, the most popular types of DeFi solutions right now include DeFi cryptocurrency exchanges and DeFi lending platforms.

Here is an example to help you understand how DeFi can work for a basic lending platform –

John has Ethereum tokens in his digital wallet and he wants to earn money from them without selling the tokens. Now, John would visit a lending platform and lock 100 of his Ethereum tokens in the platform. John would receive a certain percentage of interest for his deposit. On the other hand, Koshy wants to borrow some Ethereum tokens. So, he visits the same lending platform and connects with John to borrow his Ethereum tokens. Koshy can use the tokens for trading, make profits, and return the tokens to John with interest. 

The basic example of the DeFi lending platform is one of the prominent areas of work in DeFi developer jobs. In addition, you can also take a look at the performance of the notable DeFi projects in the present times. For example, Maker is a DeFi lending platform with almost $2.81 billion locked in the platform. Some of the other DeFi lending platforms include Compound, Uniswap, and Aave with $1.66 billion, $1.35 billion, and $1.53 billion locked in respectively in each platform. 

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What Do I Have to Do in DeFi Jobs?

The most important question in the mind of aspirants seeking entry-level DeFi jobs refers to the type of work. One of the key highlights of all the popular DeFi projects refers to the implementation of smart contracts. DeFi solutions are basically decentralized applications that have smart contracts coded in them. Smart contracts are essential ingredients for emulating centralized organizations like traditional financial institutions for encouraging trust in DeFi solutions. Therefore, it is essential to design a contract for the execution only upon achieving compliance with all requirements in its parameters.

So, it is important to notice that majority of DeFi jobs for beginners are DeFi developer jobs. Interestingly, most of the DeFi projects today are Ethereum-based in accordance with the ERC-20 token standard and Solidity programming language. As a result, aspiring developers could easily find scope for beginning their careers in DeFi.

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Skills Required for DeFi Developer

Now, you know about ‘what is DeFi’ and ‘what type of entry-level job you can get in DeFi’. The next prominent aspect of the answer to ‘how to get a job in DeFi’ refers to the skill requirements. As a matter of fact, the basic skills required for the jobs of a DeFi developer are the same as for regular developers. 

• Candidates for entry-level jobs as DeFi developers must have a strong foundational grasp of computer science and IT. 
• In addition, developers interested in transitioning to the DeFi space should also develop a comprehensive understanding of various building blocks in DeFi projects. The important concepts include cryptography, networking, and data structures. 

While these are some of the core skills required for a DeFi career, you should also focus on financial knowledge. Although developers don’t need any academic or professional background in finance to develop DeFi solutions, you can have a strong competitive advantage with a fluent understanding of banking and finance.

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Specific Skill Requirements

Candidates who are trying to find entry-level DeFi jobs as DeFi developers must also focus on specific skill requirements. Every DeFi developer must fulfill the specific skill requirements of having comprehensive expertise in Solidity and ERC-20 tokens. 

• ERC-20 tokens refer to the tokens tailored specifically for use on the Ethereum blockchain while complying with certain community-defined standards. The tokens are created through smart contracts by using the Solidity programming language.
• The most important requirement for DeFi developer jobs would refer to the Solidity programming language. Solidity is basically a high-level object-oriented programming language tailored for the implementation of smart contracts. The design of Solidity takes inspiration from JavaScript, Python, and C++. The striking highlight in the design of Solidity is the flexibility for interfacing between the Ethereum Virtual Machine and the blockchain network. 

Candidates aspiring for a career in DeFi must also focus on building practical experience. Knowledge of Solidity and Ethereum is just the beginning in the DeFi space and you can gain more only by developing practice projects of your own. 

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Steps to Find a DeFi Developer Job

The overview of skills required for DeFi jobs is not enough for a beginner to land up with jobs in the DeFi sector. Therefore, it is important to follow a well-defined plan for finding lucrative jobs as DeFi developers. Here are some helpful pointers you can try for starting your DeFi career.

• Start with searching the different blockchain-based job platforms. Some of the notable platforms that can help in searching for DeFi developer roles include Crypto Jobs, Blockew or Crypto Recruit. 
• Candidates looking for entry-level DeFi jobs could also look for new projects on social media. The most favorable platforms to discover new DeFi projects include Twitter or Reddit and if possible, apply directly to the sites of the projects. 

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Know the Value of Business Understanding in DeFi Jobs

While practical experience is basically an important requirement for starting your career as a DeFi developer, you should not take on just any project that comes your way. The right project could give you many opportunities to enrich your DeFi skills. However, the wrong project can land you up with a lot of wasted time without any results. Therefore, you should try to understand the project you will be working on. You can begin with a clear overview of the whitepaper alongside an assessment of the business fundamentals. 

At this point in time, you would find the need for business understanding in your quest for DeFi developer jobs. As a DeFi developer, you should have capabilities for evaluating the chances of success of a solution alongside its utility. Refining your business experience for the role of DeFi developer would also rely considerably on comprehensive observation of other factors. You should know about the team behind the project alongside their work culture and the experience they bring to the table. Once you have selected the DeFi project you want to work with, you can move ahead with building your resume. Point out your development skills and experience in the financial sector, detailed articulately with the support of a portfolio. 

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Salary in DeFi Jobs

Among the factors that beginners look for in DeFi jobs, DeFi Solutions salary is definitely at the top. On average, an entry-level smart contract developer could earn almost $90,000 to $150,000 annually. The DeFi solutions salary estimates could grow further with experienced roles and the complexity of job responsibilities.

 

Bottom Line

The different use cases of decentralized finance or DeFi such as lending platforms, decentralized exchanges, insurance platforms, and derivatives markets have created a surge in demand for DeFi jobs. The continuously growing spectrum of decentralized financial applications definitely presents favorable prospects for beginners to build a career in DeFi. 

Most importantly, the DeFi landscape has all the necessary components required for transforming conventional financial systems and products. However, DeFi is a comparatively new space and you have to be careful about the selection of projects. The skill requirements for jobs in DeFi can imply formidable complexities for training to get DeFi jobs. On the other hand, the right platform for DeFi training and career support could help you overcome all obstacles.

*Disclaimer: The article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide any investment advice. Claims made in this article do not constitute investment advice and should not be taken as such. 101 Blockchains shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this article. Do your own research!