In the first five months of 2019, there were almost as many blockchain job listings as for all of 2018, TeQatlas research has shown.The post Blockchain job offerings growing consistently, research shows appeared first on The Block.

In the first five months of 2019, there were almost as many blockchain job listings as for all of 2018, TeQatlas research has shown. The company has analysed the data on open vacancies for blockchain-related positions, looking into disclosed salaries.

It also provided the list of the top-15 blockchain employers, with IMB grabbing first place with 335 blockchain vacancies, followed by Oracle and pwc. The rise in blockchain job offerings is nothing new—the number of blockchain-related positions has been growing consistently since the inception of blockchain.

Between  2013-2018, it noted 139 per cent CAGR growth. By the end of May, there were already 2,300 vacancies open—while there were 2,577 vacancies altogether in 2018.

With the growing number of open positions, disclosed salaries also present nicely.

While the salaries range from $17k up to $271k per year, the majority of job offerings—404 offerings—place between $81k-$144k. Therefore, an average blockchain salary is more than double the U.S. average, equaling $105k annually as opposed to $49k.

However, globally, London is the leader when it comes to job offerings. "London is Europe’s leading city in terms of Blockchain related job offerings occupying 26% of the worldwide amount.

Unsurprisingly, the US leading cities are New York and San Francisco with 19% and 13% respectively," report reads.

More businesses plan to use blockchain in future. A survey by Big Four auditing firm KPMG found that 48 percent of C-level executives believe blockchain is likely to change the way they do business in the next three years, while 41 percent of respondents said they are likely to use the technology in their companies.

For fresh graduates planning to venture into this hot sub-industry, the following information will come in useful. KPMG has recently released what it deems to be the top four skill sets for those planning a career in blockchain.

Blockchain refers to the secure and transparent ledger behind technologies such as cryptocurrency. A vague term just a few years ago, the technology and its capabilities are now more understood by businesses.

It’s expanding business models, piloting projects and presenting new solutions to many companies. But to succeed, they require graduate talent.

“Like any emerging technology, having the right talent is paramount to driving results,” the report states. “Blockchain projects will not succeed or scale without a multifaceted team that goes beyond technologists.

We expect more universities to integrate blockchain into future coursework, which will help prepare both end users as well as those who will be responsible for building, deploying and managing blockchain.

”And these talented individuals should possess these following skills:

1. Business acumen

From IT to finance, procurement to mailroom, blockchain will have an impact on every organisational role. A person working in blockchain needs to understand a business deeply as the technology works in such a way that each entity has a unique view and access. Failing to do this will result in a blockchain project without a compelling use case.

2. Tech literacy

Knowing the cloud, protocols, consensus, ERPs and networks aren’t enough. Future blockchain employees should also know when to use different tools and platforms, as well as how blockchain interacts within an existing technology ecosystem and vice versa. Some knowledge of coding like JavaScript, HTML and Solidity will be important for those planning to work on the development side of blockchain, too.

3. Data analysis

One of blockchain’s greatest benefits is data. The report says the key to success lies in those who can understand and make use of this to be presented to a variety of people across the business.

4. Hacker mentality

A blockchain worker must be open to explore and experiment by “hacking the problem” from a business and technology perspective. This means working collaboratively in a workshop-type setting to think through the business objectives, implications and value story for each of the participants and then define the architecture and overall solution flow.

As undergraduates emerge from schools with software development or business skills, companies exploring blockchain use are seeking job candidates with four specific skill sets, according to a new report from consultancy KPMG.

Those skills are needed more with each passing month; KPMG expects an increase in the number of companies exploring blockchain this year for everything from identifying new business models to piloting projects and ultimately, progressing to scalable solutions.

KPMG said, not surprisingly, that it's seeking graduates with a solid grasp of blockchain at a high level – those who understand distributed ledgers, peer-to-peer topologies and consensus mechanisms; all are key for a technologist hoping to land a high-paying blockchain developer job.

The nexus of tech and business acumen

"The key thing we do at KPMG is balance an understanding of how this technology works without being a blockchain hammer looking for a nail," said Tegan Keele, KPMG's U.S. blockchain program lead. "You have to know how to apply it and that really only comes if you have an understanding of business processes.

"Secondly, members of a blockchain team should understand the difference between a variety of technologies, including the cloud, protocols, ERPs and networks, and know  when to use different mechanisms and platforms.

"This will help ensure they can understand how blockchain interacts within an existing technology ecosystem, and how that ecosystem will impact the design of the blockchain solution," KPMG said.

"And for those who are planning to work on the development side of blockchain, some knowledge of coding (JavaScript, HTML, solidity, etc.) is helpful....

That means the company looks for blockchain developers with business acumen, such as a knowledge of supply chain or procurement systems or finance processes – skills that are already taught in undergraduate programs.


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In today's networked environments, the only certainty is change. It is imperative, therefore, that solutions are selected and designed with that in mind.

KPMG also looks for a job candidate's technical literacy, or the ability to understand  data generated on a blockchain platform and how to use it in a business context.

One of the key attributes of blockchain is its ability to span an organization and its business partners, essentially connecting multiple, disparate entities through a single, transparent electronic ledger.

"But, then you have multiple people within each participating entity looking at the blockchain and they're all going to want to see slightly different things," Keele said. "So understanding how to derive those insights out of the information on a blockchain is key."

A hacker's ability to problem solve

Those entering the blockchain development/engineering field should have the mentality of a hacker - or the ability to problem solve collaboratively in a workshop setting when a client presents a business problem.


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They need to be able to think through the business objectives, implications and value "for each of the participants and then [define] the architecture and overall solution flow," KPMG said. "It is this collaborative approach that leads to a successful application of blockchain.

"Given the lack of coursework around blockchain and its relatively new existence in the enterprise, a team must be open to exploring and experimenting by "hacking the problem" from a business and IT perspective, according to KPMG.

"I'd say at KPMG we've been very successful at taking [employee] skills in-house and upscaling them to deliver blockchain skills," Keele said.

"Until universities start printing blockchain degrees, that will be the pattern that will continue.

"The list of U.S. universities now offering courses on blockchain continues to grow and includes such prestigious institutions as MIT, Princeton, UC Berkeley and Stanford University.

The top blockchain jobs, according to a report last year by BusinessStudent.com, are interns, project managers, developers, engineers, quality engineers, legal consultants or attorneys and web designers.

While most techies who add blockchain to their skillset are versed in programming languages such as Java or Python, it's by no means a prerequisite for learning the technology.

Like any emerging technology, having the right talent is paramount to driving results, KPMG's report said."Blockchain projects will not succeed or scale without a multifaceted team that goes beyond technologists," KPMG wrote.

"We expect more universities to integrate blockchain into future coursework, which will help prepare both end users as well as those who will be responsible for building, deploying and managing blockchain."

The dearth of workers for a hot field

Currently, there's a significant lack of skilled blockchain developers, according to job search sites and research firms. That paucity of talent is one of the major stumbling blocks for companies hoping to deploy blockchain. For those with blockchain skills, the job market is red hot.

In February, the online job search site Hired reported demand for blockchain engineers was "through the roof," with year-over-year growth of more than 200%.

Hired's jobs report, which was in line with earlier reports from LinkedIn and jobs market research firms Burning Glass Technologies and Janco Associates, shows software engineers with blockchain skills are in higher demand than at any time in the past, with the number of positions growing more than five-fold in the past year.

While blockchain engineering is the most in-demand skill on the Hired marketplace, only 12% of those surveyed by the firm earlier this year identified blockchain as the top technology they want to learn. Fifty-one percent of survey respondents named Python as one of their most-liked languages, 49% cited Javascript and 19% named. PHP.

Another problem affecting the mismatch between the need for blockchain developers and the scarcity of available workers is the difficulty in finding places that offer training, according to Hired CEO Mehul Patel.

In general, one in five software engineers is self-taught, according to Hired's data.

"I think generally we are seeing less than half of engineers we looked at had a B.S. degree and one-fifth of them had gone through a year and a half of school. So, one-third of our engineering base are self-taught or taught through non-traditional means," Patel said.

Senior Reporter Lucas Mearian covers financial services IT (including blockchain), healthcare IT and enterprise mobile issues (including mobility management, security, hardware and apps).

Employer interest in hiring bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain roles is on the upswing again, after experiencing a downturn along with bitcoin market, but job seeker interest has yet to rebound, according to new data from job search site Indeed.


Between February 2018 and February 2019, the share of job postings in these fields per million on Indeed increased by 90%. However, the share of job searches per million decreased by 67%, the data found.

SEE: IT leader's guide to the blockchain (Tech Pro Research)Taking a longer term view, interest around bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain jobs is still up: When expanding the view from 2016 to 2019, the share of job postings in these areas increased by 4,086%, and the share of job searches increased by 553%, Indeed found.


Job seeker interest in bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain jobs spiked around January 2018, when bitcoin prices were fluctuating, Indeed found.


Image: Indeed
Demand for blockchain jobs has now outstripped candidate interest, the data shows, demonstrating that while the initial hype around these careers has died down for job seekers, companies are still looking to fill key roles including cryptocurrency analyst, cryptocurrency trader, and bitcoin full stack developer.

These 10 companies have had the highest share of job postings per million for roles related to bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain over the past year:

• Deloitte
• IBM
• KPMG
• EY
• Accenture
• Cisco
• JP Morgan Chase
• Microsoft
• Conduent
• ConsenSys

In terms of location, the metro areas with the most job postings in these fields include San Jose, San Francisco, New York, Austin, and Seattle, the data showed.

Blockchain jobs pay above the US median salary, a past Glassdoor report found: Open blockchain-related jobs on the site last year offered a median base salary of $84,884 per year.

To learn more, check out these TechRepublic cheat sheets on blockchain and bitcoin.

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“Big Four” professional consulting firms Deloitte, KPMG and EY are all in the top five when it comes to posting blockchain job ads, according to new data from Indeed.com.

The employment site released its latest figures for job postings relating to blockchain, cryptocurrency and bitcoin in the U.S. on Thursday, with the data covering the period from February 2018 to February 2019.

Topping the table was Deloitte, with IBM and KPMG in second and third place, respectively. EY and Accenture (another major consulting firm) came fourth and fifth, also respectively.

Deloitte’s top placing is perhaps not surprising, as the firm has been very active in the blockchain space, participating in trials, developing products and offering services around the tech.

The consulting giant has previously said: “We envision that [Deloitte’s] ever-evolving and nimble team will build upon our past success in helping our clients, which includes 92 percent of the financial service companies listed on the Fortune 500 list, to hone their blockchain-backed offerings,” he said. 

Indeed.com’s data also shows that of all the financial firms, JPMorgan has placed the most ads for blockchain staff over the last year. While its chairman and president, Jamie Dimon, is notoriously skeptical of bitcoin, his company is actively preparing for a future where blockchain is a key part of financial infrastructure and notably revealed its own in-house cryptocurrency in February.

No other Wall Street institutions made Indeed’s top 10.Discussing the data, Indeed.com economist Andrew Flowers told Forbes that it’s “notable that there’s a lack of financial and banking companies hiring for something that’s made to replace money.

”Microsoft and ethereum development studio ConsenSys also made it to the top 10, according to Indeed’s data, in eighth and tenth place, respectively.

Flowers further said the last year marks the first time there have been more job postings than searches – likely because of the decline in crypto prices, as Indeed has previously suggested.

The data shows that searches per million on its site for roles involving blockchain, cryptocurrency and bitcoin declined by 67 percent during the period, while the share of job postings per million increased by 90 percent.

Back in November, another Indeed.com data report showed that the number of blockchain job postings increased by 25.49 percent from October 2017 to October 2018.San Jose, San Francisco and New York are the cities with the most blockchain postings, Indeed’s latest report concludes.

Deloitte image via Shutterstock 

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

The biggest bank in America is continuing on a blockchain rampage by posting more jobs in the industry than any other financial firm.

 According to results released today by job-hunting site Indeed.com, JPMorgan Chase was the only financial firm in the top ten companies posting jobs with the words “blockchain,” “cryptocurrency,” or “bitcoin” over the past year.

In February 2019, JPMorgan Chase unveiled JPM Coin, a plan to use blockchain to simplify payments between its clients, after earlier creating a version of the ethereum blockchain, called Quorum, designed to let enterprises capitalize on the benefits of using a shared ledger similar to bitcoin’s blockchain, but with more control over privacy and faster speeds.

The only companies to post more jobs than JPMorgan Chase were tech firms IBM and Cisco, and consulting firms Accenture, EY, KPMG, and Deloitte, the last of which posted more jobs than any other company.

Wrapping up the top ten list was Microsoft, ethereum incubator ConsenSys, and little-known Conduent, which spun off from Xerox in 2017 and builds platforms for big businesses and governments.

"It’s notable that there’s a lack of financial  and banking companies hiring for something that’s made to replace money," said Indeed.com economist Andrew Flowers, who has been following the hiring trends for over a year. Doubly notable, he added, was that for the first time ever, there's more job postings than searches.

From February 2018 to February 2019, the share of job searches per million on the job site decreased by 67%, Flowers said, further correlating the drop to the decrease in the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. "Job seeker interest has collapsed because it tracks the price of bitcoin," Flowers says. "Job seeker interest is as volatile as the price of bitcoin."

While the survey doesn’t speculate as to the reason the job postings have increased in spite of the price drop, one possibility is a recent increase in the number of large companies exploring non-cryptocurrency applications of blockchain.

While the decentralized, shared, blockchain ledger that powers bitcoin first promised to let individuals move value without middlemen like banks, enterprises are exploring how similar shared ledgers can enable other movements of value without other middlemen.

To give some broader perspective on the trend, the Indeed.com survey shows a 4,086% increase in related job postings to the site since 2016, and a 553% increase in job searches over the same period.

To help fill the gap in demand between job postings and searching, traditional institutions like UC Berkley, and specialized programs like the Blockchain Education Network are evolving to train up-and-coming talent.

Demand for these jobs is largely centered in expected areas, with Silicon Valley and San Francisco taking the top two positions for most job postings, followed by New York City, Newark, New Jersey, and Jersey City, which collectively held the third position.

Rounding out the top ten geographies posting jobs including the words “blockchain,” “cryptocurrency,” or “bitcoin” are Austin, Texas, Seattle Washington, Denver, Colorado, Washington DC, Boston, Massachusetts, and Los Angeles, California.




Michael del Castillo

Forbes Staff

I report on how blockchain and cryptocurrencies are being adopted by enterprises and the broader business community. My coverage includes the use of cryptocurrencies suc... Read More

Square CEO Jack Dorsey said he wants to hire a few cryptocurrency engineers and a designer, to conduct work that will contribute to advancing an accessible, Internet-based financial system that benefits the greater community.

The new employees be able to work from wherever they want, report directly to Dorsey, and can even be paid in Bitcoin, if they so choose.“I love this technology and community.

I’ve found it to be deeply principled, purpose-driven, edgy, and…really weird. Just like the early internet! I’m excited to get to learn more directly,” Dorsey tweeted on Wednesday afternoon.

jack✔@jack#BitcoinTwitter and #CryptoTwitter! Square is hiring 3-4 crypto engineers and 1 designer to work full-time on open source contributions to the bitcoin/crypto ecosystem. Work from anywhere, report directly to me, and we can even pay you in bitcoin! Introducing @SqCrypto. Why?11.6K9:58 PM - Mar 20, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacy

4,739 people are talking about this


Square already allows people to buy and sell Bitcoin on its Cash App, which is also a mobile payments platform that competes with Venmo.Dorsey said Square “has taken a lot from the open source community to get us here,” so this would be his way of giving back to the community—while also helping to further Square’s “broader interest” of having an accessible financial system for the Internet.

“This will be Square’s first open source initiative independent of our business objectives.

These folks will focus entirely on what’s best for the crypto community and individual economic empowerment, not on Square’s commercial interests,” Dorsey wrote. “All resulting work will be open and free.”

The world’s fifth largest oil and gas producer in the world, Royal Dutch Shell, is getting further into the blockchain game, and is looking to train the next generation of blockchain industry execs.

Shell is looking for “blockchain analysts” as part of its Information Technology (IT) graduate programme, according to a job listing on its graduate careers website.

The job role has seemingly flown under the radar for the last four months after being posted to LinkedIn. According to the job specification, the placement will take place in Shell‘s Blockchain Centre of Excellence (CoE). But what does a “blockchain analyst” even do?

Well, successful applicants will explore potential new applications of the decentralized technology across all of Shell‘s business areas – from its core in oil and gas to new energies and electric vehicles.

They will be responsible for taking potential use cases from “ideation” through to implementation. This will include finding new applications of not just blockchain but other decentralized technologies. It’ll then be the responsibility of the analyst to sell these potential uses to the rest of the business, the job listing states.

Shell is looking for recent Master’s graduates with backgrounds in the following disciplines: mathematics, computer science, and artificial intelligence.Indeed, it makes sense that Shell is looking for the next generation of business-based blockchain proponents.

In November last year, the Dutch firm took part in launching a blockchain-based platform for trading oil, that is replacing a centuries old, traditionally paper-based, process.

What’s more, the fact that Shell is hiring graduates points to a greater trend uncovered earlier this month.

Data gathered by Hard Fork showed that the blockchain industry‘s biggest employers are actually old-school corporate firms like Deloitte, IBM, Accenture, Oracle, and KPMG.

Want to find out more about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology?

Check out our Hard Fork track at TNW 2019!

There's been a 517% increase in demand for software engineers with blockchain development skills in the past year, according to a new report from job search site Hired.

In its first-ever analysis of only software engineering jobs, Hired found blockchain development skills ranked in the top three job openings in almost every global region. Blockchain engineers were followed by security engineers and embedded engineers, which saw 132% and 76% year-over-year growth, respectively.



Hired

Mehul Patel, CEO of Hired, said the growth in demand for blockchain skills has gone "through the roof" and tops anything he's ever seen.




[ Further reading: Blockchain: The complete guide ]"It's staggering growth," Patel said.

San Francisco-based Hired culled its data from the resumes of more than 100,000 job seekers and job postings from more than 10,000 companies that use the website.Salaries for software developers with blockchain skills are as high as $157,000 in the U.S., according to the report. Outside the U.S., salaries drop significantly, but that is to be expected, as pay for software engineers in general is lower in other regions, Patel said.


Hired

In London, for example, software engineers with blockchain development skills earn as much as $90,000; in Toronto they earn up to $75,000; and in Paris, $67,000, according to Hired's report.[ Looking to upgrade your career in tech? This comprehensive online course teaches you how. ]Hired's data is not far off that of other recent job reports.

For example, job market research firm Burning Glass Technologies in December reported that blockchain developer job openings had grown 316% in the past year – creating 12,006 job openings in the U.S. alone.The median advertised salary for software developers requiring blockchain skills in the U.S. was $125,000, according to Burning Glass Technologies.


Hired

"As demand increases, so do salaries," according to the Hired report.Also, in December, LinkedIn revealed its top five emerging careers and found blockchain developer was number one.

Job listings for those who can create blockchain ledgers had grown 33-fold in a year, according to LinkedIn's 2018 U.S. Emerging Jobs Report. In distant second place were machine learning engineers, positions that saw a 12-fold increase during the same period.

While blockchain engineering is the most in-demand skill on the Hired marketplace, only 12% of survey respondents identified blockchain as the top technology they want to learn. Fifty-one percent of survey respondents named Python as one of their most-liked languages, while 49% cited Javascript. PHP was ranked the least favorite at 19%. 

Another problem affecting the mismatch between the need for blockchain developers and a lack of available workers is the difficulty in finding places that offer training, Patel said. In general, one in five software engineers is self-taught, according to Hired's data."I think generally we are seeing less than half of engineers we looked at had a B.S.  degree and one fifth of them had gone through a year and a half of school.

So one-third of our engineering base are self-taught or taught through non-traditional means," Patel said. Almost two-thirds of the software engineering roles on Hired's platform didn't have blockchain in the title, but did list it as a skill. 

"So, I think the title itself is not out there yet, but folks are definitely looking for the skills," Patel said.While still relatively rare, blockchain training programs have begun to pop up and are now being offered by some of the nation's leading universities, including Princeton, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and MIT.

Currently, the easiest and fastest way to become proficient is to learn on your own or attend programs organized by blockchain vendors and industry groups, such as Consensys, Blockapps, the Ethereum Foundation and Hyperledger.

While blockchain may be a relatively new technology in terms of enterprise deployments, Patel said he's confident demand will continue to be strong for years to come as businesses begin implementing "their countless use cases" Those uses involve everything from digital identity and smart contracts to workforce management and distributed data storage.

"I think there's a deep feeling here that blockchain is the next wave of technology innovation that will underpin almost every industry one way or another – sort of like the first wave of the internet in the 1990s," Patel said. "So no, I don't think this is a temporary thing."

Ernst Young, one of the largest professional services firms in the world, will be hiring 2,000 employees in India in the next three years as part of its plan to build up its digital solution services in a number of domains including blockchain technology.

EY to Invest $1 Billion to Expand into Blockchain, AI

EY, which predicted in 2016 that large-scale implementation of blockchain technology would take at least three to five years, said in a report that companies who invest, experiment and adapt to DLT by that time will be able to reap the rewards of early adoption.

The digital services team in India will be assigned to develop blockchain projects for corporate and government customers. Other domains include analytics, automation, artificial intelligence, and tax technology, Ram Sarvepalli, EY India head of advisory services, told the Economic Times.

“There is significant capital available for new startups and big Indian companies are investing in digital,” Sarvepalli added. The government is heavily investing in digital from a citizen services perspective. Many of the traditional customer-oriented industries are trying to find models which allow access to customers to tier-two, tier-three towns from a digital perspective. There are regulatory changes like GST coming in and e-filing and automation of central and state govt departments … all of this is triggering a massive opportunity and the need for hiring digital talent.”

EY is adding about 600 employees every six months in analytics and has hired nearly 700 people in the last 18 months for digital governance jobs. Globally, the investment in new technology solutions will reach $1 billion over the next two financial years.

Related Reading: Indian Government to Draft Cryptocurrency Regulation Next Month

The company already has more than 2,200 people working on digital and technology solutions in India, with 25 percent of recruits being from a Science Technology Engineering Maths (STEM) background.Ernst & Young (EY), one of the ‘Big Four’ public service firms, was an early adopter of blockchain technology.

It has recently announced the launch of its EY Ops Chain Public Edition (PE), which allows businesses to benefit from private transactions over a public blockchain. The solution uses the zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) framework, which brings unparalleled protection during communication.

With blockchain labs in London and Paris, the firm is also developing DLT-powered tracking capabilities called EY Blockchain Private Transaction Monitor. The Indian booming economy will be able to adopt these technologies under development as EY plans to place thousands of new workers in the field over the next three years.

A business that is also booming for EY is auditing services of crypto firms. The Big Four accountancy firms, which include EY, are hiring blockchain specialists to address the new demand.

Though research shows that Irish people are hesitant to dive into blockchain in their professional lives, David Wachsman is confident that it’s inevitable not only for you, but your little dog, too.

Blockchain elicits all reactions and none. The response from people when the topic is broached can range from a blank stare to a laboured sigh. Some know blockchain only through bitcoin, others don’t know it at all. A small cohort of people will nearly scratch a cornea rolling their eyes at its mere mention, deriding it as a fad.

David Wachsman, founder and CEO of Wachsman, certainly disagrees with the technology’s detractors. He, described by Crunchbase as a “world-renowned blockchain expert and thought leader”, welcomed me in the glass conference room of his company’s Dublin office.

This office recently announced the expansion of its functions beyond PR, now offering a broad swathe of blockchain professional services to clients such as Dash, CoinDesk, Indiegogo, Kik and more.

David has been away from his native New York and hopping between Wachsman’s hubs in Ireland and Singapore, the latter of which recently opened. He has been living out of a suitcase for the better part of three months, though it shows neither in his temperament nor appearance.

Serene and self-possessed, sitting in the house that blockchain built, his (professional) house, he is confident enough in Ireland’s blockchain scene to double down on his commitment to it. He is baffled that the majority of Irish people, according to research recently published by the company, disagree with him.

As many as 75pc of people say they would not consider a career in the area.“Most people don’t know what blockchain is, that’s what our findings found. They don’t get it. To them, it’s simply some buzzword technology. That’s a big PR problem. It’s also a problem for companies that are building out in the space, and we have many here in Ireland who are doing that.

”The blockchain ecosystem in Dublin is in pretty good condition. A healthy mix of blockchain-focused companies such as ConsenSys have operations here. Many of the large consultancy firms have dedicated blockchain labs.

Finance giants such as Fidelity Investments and Mastercard have poured resources into gaining a foothold in blockchain. “All the big tech giants, some of them probably secretly, are looking to hire people with blockchain backgrounds here in Dublin.”

Blockchain’s inevitable takeover

The proliferation of blockchain technology is as inevitable as the tide coming in. It’ll wash over us all in a matter of time. The march of technological progress is as unrelenting as the spinning of our Earth. It won’t be a case of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object – you will be moved into working in blockchain.

Though many in the Wachsman survey cited an inappropriate educational background as a reason they would not want to wade into it, the worker of tomorrow will likely learn on the job.

“Almost everyone today works at an internet company. The company itself may not be actually building websites but they probably have one. The company itself isn’t developing email applications but I guarantee you they use [them], or a chat app.

Blockchain companies are going to be just like that in future. Blockchain will be a piece of the technology stack that people use every single day.”For now, most of the blockchain jobs lie in building infrastructure, and the roles are mostly developer roles.

David maintains, however, that this is temporary.“Tomorrow, it’s going to be every company. I think [workers] are going to gain their skills by simply working with companies endeavouring blockchain.”

Steel, your dog and your mobile phone

This inevitability doesn’t address the fact that people still neither understand nor trust blockchain as a technology. If it is going to be such a large element of the future of work, as David implies, then a huge obstacle will have to be overcome in order to attract workers to the area.

“We need to do a better job of educating.

That means 101-type pieces, that means meet-ups, that means lectures. We need universities to chip in a bit because that’s what they’re really good at: teaching complicated concepts to people.

”More importantly, David adds, a “big consumer-y brand” or website needs to adopt blockchain. Airlines need to tokenise loyalty points. It needs to be normalised, which will likely happen. The question is, by whom?

David cites in particular blockchain’s potential application to the supply chain as the use case he is most excited about “because it’s boring”. Supply chains are complicated and expensive with a huge amount of moving parts. Maximising the efficiency of this process by reliably tracking all the various extenuating factors could lower the price of steel.

“That changes the world. ”Moving away from the macro, David opines that man’s best friend could end up having as much of a relationship with blockchain as humans.

Blockchain, though it’s “peer-to-peer trading of value”, could easily be applied to energy. “If your dog were wearing a little backpack with a solar panel on it, that dog, cute as it might be, would be an energy producer.

Because of the nature of how energy transmission works, the further you are away from the energy producer, the more is wasted. Imagine your dog being able to power, or at least being able to recharge, your cellphone.”

Hello Brexit, goodbye blockchain

Thanks to Brexit, Ireland can expect for its blockchain industry, and therefore the number of blockchain jobs, to only grow with time. This is in line with the general jobs boon that Ireland is experiencing as the UK, rather disastrously, attempts to negotiate its way out of the single market.

Companies such as Coinbase have announced plans to set up shop in Dublin, citing concerns about Brexit.“Ireland is a very important part of Europe. It’s the only English-speaking EU country, and Britain is making damn sure of that.

 I would say that as a launch pad for Europe, it’s a vital place for companies to set up – blockchain companies [in particular] because it is such a borderless enterprise. So many of the applications of blockchain must be international, that’s what makes them so effective. This distributed database must be distributed.”




 By Eva ShortEva Short is a Careers reporter at Silicon Republic who, coincidentally, was raised in Silicon Valley and has been nicknamed a ‘digital native’. Her passions include Pomeranians, witchcraft, skincare, wearing exclusively dark colours and eating.

When she’s not writing about tech professionals, she’s working backstage at festivals, yelling at musicians, and amassing a collection of crumpled gig tickets to stick on her wall.

The demand for blockchain engineers or software developers has continued to skyrocket over the past year and salaries for those positions are growing in lockstep.

The median salary for a blockchain developer is now $127,000, with experienced individuals commanding upwards of $172,000 when they move to new organizations, according to Janco Associates, a management consulting firm that conducts regular salary surveys.

[ Read about the 2018 Best Places to Work in IT ]

"ERP and Blockchain jobs are in great demand. Individuals can look forward to salaries continuing to increase," Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis said via email.


Janco Associates

Hired, a job recruitment firm, placed the salary for blockchain engineers even higher than Janco, saying they can command between $150,000 and $175,000 a year; those jobs are now on par with developers of artificial intelligence (AI).

By comparison, software engineers earn an average of $137,000, according to Hired CEO Mehul Patel.

"Since launching blockchain as an expertise on our platform in late 2017, we have witnessed demand for blockchain engineers increase 400%," Patel said via email.

"Interestingly, blockchain engineer has not solidified itself as a standalone job title quite yet; instead, blockchain is increasingly being included as an area of expertise for back-end, solutions architects and machine-learning engineers.

"Blockchain, Patel said, is poised to transform everything from how people verify their identities to how money is transferred, and so is expected to have longevity as a career option.

[ Looking to upgrade your career in tech? This comprehensive online course teaches you how. ]

"Combine its immense potential with the fact that it’s a new and growing field, and I can see the demand for these roles remaining high for the foreseeable future," Patel said.

A recent survey by HIred found IT professionals are increasingly looking for a position that is challenging — with 64% indicating they’d leave their job if another one offered new challenges and problems to solve. Career positions in AI/machine learning, devops and blockchain will continue to be on the cutting edge of technology, and a priority for hiring needs, Patel said.

For those hiring and looking to provide competitive offers to candidates with blockchain or other in-demand skill sets, the option to work remotely is a good incentive.

"In fact, we conducted a recent survey that found that over half of tech talent are interested in working 100% remotely," Patel said.

"Offering remote work to fill the demand for blockchain and AI engineers might meet the talent demand for these future-focused companies.

"Over the past 12 months, total job openings for blockchain skills have grown to 12,006, according to job data analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies. That represents a growth rate of 316% over that time frame. In June, Burning Glass  reported 5,743 blockchain developer jobs.

The median advertised salary for Software Developers requiring blockchain is $125,000 to $150,000, according to Burning Glass.

Freelance job site, Upwork, said demand for blockchain-based positions has increased on average 96% quarter-to-quarter in terms of job postings; it sees  blockchain development as the hottest skill in the freelance job market today.

Skills gap translates into higher pay
People with experience using specific blockchain iterations such as Solidity and Hyperledger Composer are in even higher demand - and that demand is increasing steadily, said Eric Piscini, CEO of Citizens Reserve and formerly a principal in the technology and banking practices at Deloitte Consulting LLP.



Janco Associates

"This is the number one thing I have in mind when I wake up in the morning: 'Where will I find more engineers to join the team,'" he said in an earlier interview with Computerworld.In addition to postings at established companies such as Deloitte, 2,977 blockchain startups have posted 2,043 jobs, according to AngelList, a website for investors and job-seekers looking for work at startups.

Even as companies are posting a plethora of blockchain jobs, there is a dearth of talent to fill them.

According to Upwork's latest figures (posted in June), 53% of hiring managers surveyed cite access to skills as their biggest hiring challenge, and the majority (59%) are already utilizing flexible talent.

The top blockchain jobs available today include entry-level and internship positions;  blockchain engineers; blockchain project managers; and blockchain developers. The best career opportunities are now in financial services, government agencies and at tech companies; all are seeking ways blockchain can create new efficiencies.

Other blockchain positions include quality engineers and legal consultants or attorneys, and blockchain web designers. Large organizations are also planning to beef up their middle management as they focus on Big Data, blockchain and smartphone and tablet connectivity, according to Janco.

Where to get blockchain skills
Most who choose to add blockchain to their skillset or seek a career as blockchain developers are typically versed in programming languages such as Java or Python, Piscini said. But that's by no means a prerequisite.

"More universities are starting curricula and the natural cycle to graduate enough students will produce good volumes in the next few years," Piscini said. "We collaborate with universities around the world to develop content and hire the best talent.

"Several accredited U.S. universities now offer courses on blockchain, such as MIT, which has offered two courses on cryptocurrency engineering and design, and Stanford University, which has a course called Bitcoin Engineering that teaches developers how to create bitcoin-enabled applications.

There are also specialty schools, such as Mountain View, Calif.-based Blockchain University and London-based education startup B9lab, which launched an online Certified Ethereum Developer Training program in 2016.

"We've been running this and other courses for over two years now and have trained 1,000 people from over 75 countries," said Elias Haase, founder of B9lab.The most successful students in B9lab's courses tend to have sysadmin experience and have worked with Javascript before, Hasse said.

But "with the right amount of focus, we've seen people from different backgrounds do really well."Our youngest student was 14, the oldest 76. So we've seen a pretty broad variety of developers," he said.

Currently, the easiest and fastest way to become proficient is to learn on your own or attend programs organized by blockchain vendors and industry groups, such as Consensys, Blockapps, the Ethereum Foundation and Hyperledger.

Senior Reporter Lucas Mearian covers financial services IT (including blockchain), healthcare IT and enterprise mobile issues (including mobility management, security, hardware and apps).

Early pioneers in computer science were women. Women like Grace Hopper, Jean Bartik, Dame Stephanie Shirley and Lynn Conway, were among the first programmers as the field emerged, and left a lasting mark on the industry.

In fact, back in its early stages programming was primarily a female-oriented profession and women were the largest trained technical workforce of the computing industry during the second world war right through until the mid-sixties. Then in the 1970’s things changed.

Personal computers came onto the market. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates came onto the scene, job advertisements for programmers started targeting males. Computer games were targeted at boys, and the stereotype of the computer programmer as a reclusive, anti-social eccentric male nerd was born.

The number of women majoring in computer science and software development began to drop, from close to 40 per cent in the 1980’s to around 15 percent today.  In crypto and blockchain less than nine percent of the current community are female and the number of female programmers in this space is even less.


HTTPS://COIN.DANCE/STATS

So how can this trend be reversed and how can the unhelpful stereotype of recent years be undone? How can we once again encourage, support and train female programmers to ensure women are an equal and integral part of this booming and promising industry?

After all, blockchain is a revolutionary technology that has the potential to transform many industries and the way we do business, but doing so will require divergent thinking, different perspectives, creativity and the ability to innovate, all of which, research shows time and time again, are driven by diversity – gender included.

At the same time we live in a world facing many complex, interconnected and wicked problems, the likes of which cannot be solved with the same thinking that created them. We need all of our collective and diverse ideas and experiences to come up with the solutions to today’s challenges and create tomorrow’s future.Many in the industry recognize this power of diversity.

Marie Wieck, General Manager at IBM Blockchain believes that, “when you get interdisciplinary engagement and skills and people who have come from different backgrounds, that really does create an innovation sandbox.” 

Cryptocurrency exchange, Cryptopia, are working to increase diversity across all teams, “not to only reach gender parity, but as a strong step forward in striving towards the creativity and ingenuity that fuels innovation – which can only be achieved through diversity.

”In addition, gender diversity can lead to higher returns and valuation, according to Salam Khanji, CTO of Jordan based blockchain company Green Tomorrow.

A study of gender diversity in some of the top firms in the US found that, on average, female representation in top management leads to an increase of $42 million in firm value.  

Clearly gender diversity pays.How Can We Make Programming Cool For Girls Again? Redefine The Image“There are a lot of anecdotal studies that say if you can’t see yourself in a role that you are unlikely to pursue it,” says Wieck. There needs to be more female role models and they need to be positively profiled in the field through media coverage, awards and promotion to visible leadership roles.

We also need to highlight the dynamic nature and features of the job. 

Programmer roles are often seen as a very static, isolated roles, sitting in a cubicle, tied to your laptop for hours on end coding with little human interaction.

In reality programmer roles are much more dynamic and involve problem solving, product development, client interaction and business involvement, with many different roles and levels of opportunity. We need to articulate and promote the dynamics of the role in job advertisements and through media coverage if we are to attract more diverse applicants to these positions.

Shift The Culture
The culture of any workplace or industry is hugely influential on the type of people it attracts and retains. Developing policies around inclusion and diversity are just the beginning.

Addressing deeper issues such as unconscious bias in hiring and promotion practices as well as adjusting recruitment processes are important to shift organizational culture and give women an equal footing in any role, including as programmers.

New Zealand blockchain Company, Centrality, have deliberately adapted their hiring process to increase recruitment of female programmers including interviewing all non-male applicants that apply. Centrality co-founder Aaron McDonald observes that “often women undersell their skills in their CV and so interviewing them will help to understand their skills better.

”Digital Currency platform, Coinbase, have made commitments to hiring inclusively. 33 percent of their leadership roles are held by women and for each open position at the VP level and above, the company ensures that three qualified people from underrepresented backgrounds are interviewed.

Addressing Mid-Career Drop Outs, Role Flexibility and Re-Training
There is presently a high mid-career drop out rate of women in tech. This is a time when women are often juggling their career with caregiver roles, whether elder care or childcare, requiring some flexibility and accommodations to be able to continue to fulfil both roles. It‘s also a time when they may be returning to work after some time off.

These years away from the industry, especially one that is evolving so rapidly, often leaves a gap on their CV and in their skill sets. Re-skilling programs and considerations in hiring processes are vital to ensuring talented female programmers are re-employed and supported to advance their career at this critical juncture.

Centrality combines a culture of flexibility with high levels of accountability to accommodate and encourage more female programmers in their company who often are juggling family commitments. 

Whilst ThoughtWare CEO Sonja Bernhardt sees flexibility and agility as critical to retaining and attracting her 100% female coding team. She says, “We are highly agile in how we are structured and how we operate. Core values at ThoughtWare are about individuals and thinking, with people accepting adult responsibility for what they do and when they do it.

” When it comes to retraining and hiring mid-career women, IBM Blockchain Wieck says, “Even though we have a great track record in both advancing and recruiting women to IBM, we still find that they drop out of tech more frequently than men.

So we formed a program called Pathways to Technology that is mentoring that mid-career woman and also looking at the re-entry of women who may have stepped out because of family needs and how to reintroduce them into the workforce and catch them up given the fast pace of change in skills.

”Formal leadership development programs at this mid-career level have also proven to be critical to retaining female talent in any organisation, including female technologists.

According to AnitaB.org,“Investing in formal leadership development programs lets women know that their growth and advancement is a priority. They help women clearly identify their goals and create strategies for reaching positions of greater influence and responsibility".

Educate And Train Newcomers
The tech industry has faced criticism for not attracting and retaining female workers and much of this criticism is certainly warranted. However, many blockchain companies say they would love to employ more female programmers but they simply aren’t out there or aren’t applying for the jobs.

So clearly, despite all best efforts and intentions there is also a pipeline issue – a training and education issue. Organizations like Girls Who Code, She Codes and Rails Girls are doing their bit to train and encourage young women to code but more must be done to target women to learn the craft.

Whilst jobs in technology and blockchain are poised for ongoing growth and expansion, women presently represent a very small percentage of these roles.

 Building an inclusive workplace and recruiting and retaining more female programmers requires strategic, ongoing effort including an overhaul of the unconscious bias and stereotyped image of the role.

But this effort is critical for our industry to thrive and develop the diverse products and solutions needed for the 21st century and to solve the wicked problems of our time.   

I am the Chair and a Co-founder of PowerLedger.io, a leading full stack energy blockchain technology company. I have more than 15 years experience in finance and risk advisory having worked for 11 years in investment banking in London.

Whilst there, I completed a Masters deg... MORE

Dr. Jemma Green is the Chair & Co-founder of Power Ledger and a researcher and speaker on the enterprise disruption caused by blockchain technology. Disclosure: I own Bitcoin and POWR.

The blockchain industry is a great choice for any lawyer willing to make a bold move.
By OLGA V. MACK

At this point, you’ve definitely heard of blockchain (or Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, blockchain’s most famous applications). But have you considered how you could integrate it into your career?

It’s easy to be intimidated by blockchain, but it’s a relatively simple idea. Blockchain simply refers to a digitized economic ledger where information blocks are connected to each other in chains through cryptography. It can be used to record a wide variety of information, especially financial and economic information.

The information is held on a universally accessible register that is regularly updated and is considered incorruptible. The development of blockchain technology was originally to cater to the use of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, but its applications are expanding to nearly every field. This exciting new industry can offer you a chance to completely change your career and become a leader in this unexplored territory.

   Relatively Easy Entry
Blockchain and smart contract experts are extremely rare, despite the high demand for these professionals in the industry. With a little practice and experience, you can easily enter the industry and become extremely successful.

The relative newness of the technology means that the industry is not already saturated with professionals who are adept at handling blockchain and smart contracts. In addition, becoming an expert is quite easy in this industry as it is still in its developing stages and is not yet too complex for a determined person to master.

In fact, you can help shape and even lead its development. Finally, the industry is  relatively easy to enter, as it does not have any legal requirements such as licenses or certifications for you to become an expert in the different elements of business.

   Digitized Assets
Digital assets are now common, especially with the role of the internet in our daily lives. The information collected from our browsing and social media is an extremely important aspect of the advertising industry. Blockchain technology is a great asset for handling these types of digital assets as it allows for the distribution of digital information. In fact, it is actually the structure of a new form of internet. This is the future of technology and you definitely do not want to be left out when this industry blows up.


   It Pays
The lack of professionals in the industry means that the existing experts receive great remunerations. Already, professionals who are in this industry are paid much higher than those still using the typical financial structures. If you are considering entering this industry, then you can look forward to a great salary. This is probably the most compelling reason why you should enter these industries. As you become an expert, you can expect your salary to continue to increase. More jobs but few workers allows you to negotiate great salaries.


   It Is a Brave New World
Blockchain technology has revolutionized the internet in ways that are likely to have some major economic benefits. Originally created to deal with online currencies, blockchain technology has completely changed the way economic and financial transactions are conducted today. This technology has also changed how information is handled, therefore opening up opportunities in dealing with digital data.  

A perceptive lawyer can take advantage of this and explore these new benefits. After becoming an expert, you can become a leader in an unexplored industry, which can be very financially rewarding. For individuals with an interest in new technologies, then the blockchain industry is definitely the industry for you.


   Long-Term Industry
The blockchain and smart contracts industry is likely to last a very long time and will only expand in use. The technology is based on similar concepts as those that support the internet, meaning that it has the potential of surviving for many years. The internet has been around for at least 30 years, with new uses being identified every day.

This industry is likely to provide you with lasting work for numerous years to come. Being an early entrant can place you in the perfect position to take advantage of any opportunities that arise in this relatively new industry, and the fact that the industry is diversified means that you can get opportunities for a long time.


   Increased Flexibility
The blockchain industry is extremely flexible and easy to adapt. The information blocks are not stored in one central area and are not easy to manipulate. In addition, the technology can be adapted to numerous industries therefore making it a very flexible industry. For you, the flexibility stems from the fact that you can work anywhere and with anyone through this technology. This is in line with the global work trend of working online and can allow you to select when and how you will work. Private businesses are also now using the technology making it even more flexible in use.


   Diverse Work Opportunities
The industry has many exciting employment opportunities for interested individuals. Numerous new companies in the industry require staff to handle the high demand for these businesses. Staff in marketing, law, finance, and information technology are in high demand in the blockchain industry. In addition, individuals capable of solving arising issues or identifying new opportunities are highly sought after.

As a lawyer, your talents cannot lack a home within the blockchain technology industry.Although it can be an intimidating idea to switch from a legal career to an entirely new industry, the blockchain industry is a great choice for any lawyer willing to make a bold move.

The brave attorneys who transition to the blockchain industry now, while it’s still relatively new, will be rewarded with exciting work opportunities, relatively high compensation, and the chance to truly be a part of something incredible. 





Olga V. Mack is a blockchain strategist, public speaker, and adjunct professor at Berkeley Law. She is Vice President of Strategy at Quantstamp, the first decentralized security auditing blockchain platform. Most recently, she served as General Counsel at ClearSlide and she has held legal and operational roles at Visa, Zoosk, Pacific Art League, Wilson Sonsini, and Yahoo. 

Olga founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to serve on the corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. You can email Olga at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @olgavmack.

The blockchain technology market could top $2 billion in three years as companies, NGOs and governments understand the potential create customer trust, cut down on counterfeit goods, reduce transaction costs, and reach emerging markets.

While there are a growing number of ways blockchain is being used in banking, retail, and education, it’s still relatively difficult to learn the skills to compete for lucrative new jobs being created.

According to largest global freelancing website Upwork, blockchain is ranked as the hottest technology in its quarterly skills index.  Even with the cool down of the cryptocurrency markets, the demand for blockchain job skills grew six thousand percent in just the first quarter of this year.

Juha Mikkola, co-founder of Wyncode Academy, a coding school, said some developers are being paid double the going rate for their blockchain experience. "It's not just tech companies that need this talent, it's real-estate, non-profits, and banks," Mikkola said.

Early Blockchain Education Initiatives

Leading university computer science programs have been quick to respond. According to new research, 42 percent of the top 50 universities in the world offer at least one course on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. MIT offers a six-week online blockchain certificate program (in partnership with 2U).

 Oxford offers a similar six-week certificate program (also powered by 2U).Coursera offers a four-course specialization in blockchain. Udacity offers a six month nanodegree for blockchain developers. Courseware is supplemented with office hours with their Experts-in-Residence.

Atlanta-based Kingsland University (founded ten years ago as Social Media Marketing University) offers an accredited blockchain training program for developers. The hybrid program involves four weeks of face to face training and four weeks of project work. They are offering scholarship funds to reach students in countries where such training is not available. They claim 275,000 students in countries globally including the US, Singapore, Australia, and the Philippines. 

Kingsland also offers a two-day executive course.

Blockchain Council (@ChainCouncil) is a group of subject experts and enthusiasts evangelizing  Blockchain for global impact. They offer a self-paced training program to become a Certified Blockchain Developer. Participants learn the discipline of Distributed Ledger Technology from a vendor-neutral perspective.

A federation of trade unions in Singapore, the National Trading Union Congress Learning Hub (NTUC), in partnership with Huobi Group, announced this week a series of new courses on Blockchain for cryptocurrency enthusiasts and fintech professionals. The courses will cover the basics of bitcoin and distributed ledger technology, with an emphasis on practical uses of the cryptocurrency (see the outline of the introductory course).

Aeternity ventures sponsored the first blockchain course at SoftUni, Bulgaria, and recently launched the first decentralized blockchain incubator program which saw ten dynamic startups battle it out for $1.3 million in funding.

London-based education startup B9lab (@b9lab) launched an online Certified Ethereum Developer Training program in 2016 (powered by edX). They also offer an executive course.  Education is core to the philosophy of engineering companies like IOHK. 

Director of Education  Lars Brünjes, a Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics, is a specialist in Haskell, a functional and secure programming language chosen to construct the leading cryptocurrency Cardano. Lars has also led courses worldwide in the durable Haskell programming language in Athens and Barbados, with the best graduates from the program offered full-time positions at IOHK.Want a free introduction?

Start with the Blockchain Innovation podcast and Frederick Munawa’s (@FrederickMunawa) free videos. BlockGeeks has a basic tutorial. The Linux Foundation offers a free course on Hyperledger (an open source business blockchain software). The space is moving fast and some providers have come and gone, so test drive where you can and ask for graduate referrals. For more, see:

• 20 Ways Blockchain Will Transform (OK, May Improve) Education
• Imagining a Blockchain University
• Camp C-Block Introduces Blockchain Technology to Black Girls

Tom Vander Ark is an advocate for innovations in learning. As CEO of Getting Smart, he advises school districts, networks, foundations and learning organizations on the path forward. A prolific writer and speaker, Tom is author of "Getting Smart"; "Smart Cities That Work for... MORE

Blockchain is the fastest-growing skill among freelancers in the United States in the second quarter of 2018, according to global freelancing website Upwork.

The report - Q2 2018 Skills Index - shows Blockchain topped the list by beating over 5,000 other skills available on the freelancing platform. It ranked first in the Q1 as well.

See also: Ethereum Classic [ETC] sees 14% jump after Coinbase’s big announcement

A programming language by Google, Go, also figured among the top 20 skills. Go is also used to create blockchains. Blockchain-related skills have been witnessing a high demand. Since 2017, the need for the people with the skills of distributed ledger technology has seen a fourfold increase.


“Its year-over-year growth has exceeded 2,000 percent for the past four quarters, and it experienced more than 3,500 percent year-over-year growth in Q2,” Upwork stated.

See also: KICKICO announces grand competition, winners to get 2.5 million KICK

Some of the Blockchain-related jobs available on Upwork website are -- distribution system engineers and developers of various languages like Solidity (programming language for writing Ethereum smart contracts) and Node.js. Also, C++ programmers (also used for coding Bitcoin's most commonly used client Bitcoin core) are in huge demand.

Telegram community managers and white paper writers are some of the other common skills organizations are looking for.

According to a report by 'Big Four' auditing firm KPMG, Blockchain investment in the US is booming rapidly when compared to last year.

“Blockchain continued to draw a significant amount of attention from investors in Q1 and Q2’18, although investments typically focused on more experienced companies and consortia looking to obtain additional rounds of funding rather than on new market entrants … The US was particularly active on the blockchain front, with total investment in the first half of the year already exceeding the total seen in 2017,” the report read.

Upwork Skills Index Q2 2018: Check the top 20 skills for freelancers

• Blockchain
• Google Cloud Platform
• Volusion
• Risk management
• Product photography
• Rapid prototyping
• Google App Engine API
• SCORM
• GitLab
• Go development
• Apple UIKit
• Enterprise architecture
• Tensorflow
• Atlassian Confluence
• Apple Xcode
• eLearning
• Customer retention
• Articulate storyline
• Node.js
• Scala development

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Information Age's guide on how to introduce blockchain to your enterprise in the face of the digital skills crisis. Looking at everything, from upskilling schemes and outsourcing to how CTOs can impact change in relation to how universities shape their degrees



With the proliferation of blockchain initiatives comes a unique need for a diverse range of skills, including engineering, app development, cyber security, and decentralised governance, to name just a few. All this makes for a criterion that is hard to meet.

Beyond all the marketing and sales hype, blockchain has managed to establish itself as a realistic disrupter in the tech space, particularly for its potential ability to transform traditional business channels, supply chains and communications.Industry titans like Mastercard, IBM, British Airways and Samsung are just some of the organisations currently spearheading blockchain initiatives, and at the same time, blockchain-based start-ups are increasing at an agile rate.

Between them, what they each hope to get out of their blockchain projects differs significantly. However, whatever their end-goal may be, they will all face similar roadblocks along the way.In this guide, I’m going to talk about some of the ways CTOs can overcome some of these hurdles.

However, instead of focusing on the limitations of the technology itself, I want to focus on one of the less talked about challenges facing CTOs and their utilisation of blockchain: finding the talent to use it.

The talent shortage in blockchain

The skills shortage relating to blockchain has become a real pain for IT leaders who desperately want to experiment with it.Of course, the lack of talent is not exclusive to blockchain, CTOs looking to incorporate things like; AI, machine learning or big data, I’m sure, know this only too well.

>See also: Closing the skills gap: Developing the next generation of STEM talent

However, with the proliferation of blockchain initiatives comes a unique need for a diverse range of skills, including engineering, app development, cyber security and decentralised governance, to name just a few. All this makes for a criterion that is hard to meet.

Overall, the estimated global revenue for enterprise blockchain applications is expected to rise to $19.9 billion by 2025 from $2.5 billion last year.

>See also: Key employer challenges for 2018 amid the digital skills crisis

According to a study by Burning Glass Technologies, blockchain-related job postings increased more than 100% between 2016 and 2017.However, the harsh reality is that organisations can’t find the talent they need, this is why CTOs need to think outside the box to make their blockchain projects succeed. 




Figure 1 – Blockchain Adoption, Worldwide. Source: Gartner (May 2018)

Blockchain-as-a-service

If something is hard to obtain in-house, one logical option is to look for external help.In the last few years, a number of blockchain based consultancies and outsourcing services have popped up.

>See also: Business process as a service can deliver improved performance too

It looks like a booming market, and it’s an option that a lot of organisations are vying for. As such, there is a lot to choose from, with major organisations like Amazon, Oracle and Baidu all offering blockchain services.

For CTOs trying to weigh the pros and cons of each of these providers – and if the wisdom of the crowd means anything – a recent study by the consultancy firm, Juniper Research, may be worth looking at. They surveyed close to 400 company founders, executives, managers and IT leaders, and identified IBM, Microsoft and Accenture as clear leaders in blockchain solutions.

In 2017, the consultancy also found that 60% of tech executives and leaders named IBM as the market leader.

>See also: SaaS, Paas, XaaS, and more: looking behind the acronyms

Of course, these consultancies are all different and depending on your organisation; some may be better suited to your needs.Here is a list of some popular blockchain-as-service (BaaS) providers to have a look at:

• IBM Blockchain Platform

• Microsoft Azure Blockchain

• Amazon’s Blockchain Templates – AWS Blockchain Templates aims to help organisations and individuals quickly create and deploy blockchain networks on AWS using different blockchain frameworks.
• Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service

• Baidu Blockchain Open Platform Chinese web search giant Baidu’s open platform sets out to provide the most “user-friendly” blockchain service.

Blockchain-related freelance network

Another option is to tap into the freelance market. Although, in this market, there is a lot of demand.Upwork, the freelance jobs site, recently stated that they had more than 1,200 blockchain openings, half of which were technical positions.

>See also: Why we will soon be paying our freelancers in cryptocurrencies

According to their report, the second most desired skill among employers in the third quarter of 2017 was blockchain development. With such demand, it can also be an expensive choice as, naturally, their salaries will be inflated.

>See also: Rise of the IT freelancerAccording to CNBC, the hourly pay rate ranges from $50 to more than $200 in the US. However, high hourly pay rates may be worth it, especially when you take into account how quickly the technology is becoming a valuable part of tech.If you are interested in learning more about how to access the freelance market, I’ve put together a list of some of some popular blockchain-related freelance hiring platforms.

• Upwork 

• Toptal

• Dream – This is a marketplace for high-end blockchain talent and has already handled thousands of projects collectively worth over $8m.
• Codementor.io

New-collar workers

Given how blockchain is an emerging technology, it is somewhat self-evident why relevant skills are hard to source. However, despite the complexity of blockchain, depending on what an organisation wants from this type of technology, you may not necessarily need people with degrees from the top universities.

Sometimes all that is required is a little bit of training.

>See also: Prioritising skills in the digital age

Jobs of this sort of often referred to as “new-collar careers”. A new-collar worker is an employee who develops the core soft skills required to fulfil a role through means outside of traditional education.

The term was coined by IBM’s CEO, Ginni Rometty, in relation to “middle-skill” occupations in technology, such as cyber security analysts, application developers and cloud computing specialists.

According to Rometty, speaking on CNBC: “For the future, there are many jobs that can be done without a four-year degree. In some of our centres in the United States around a third of our folks don’t have four-year degrees.”

>See also: Should IT recruit attitude rather than skills?

I think this sounds like an interesting option for very evident reasons, in that as the IT industry continues to evolve, it is critical to bring in young and diverse talent.

However, if you are going to open your company to “new-collar workers”, it is vital that you put in place a structure that will help them upskill and give them opportunities to contribute in fields like blockchain.

In-house training schemes

Some companies, like IBM, have taken this into account with their blockchain projects, and perhaps their strategies can be an example for all CTOs.IBM, who is recognised as a leading blockchain vendor, have used an in-house training scheme to attract and retain talent.

The company also has an internal blockchain community boasting more than 5,000 active members.

>See also: Breaking down training barriers with technology

An interesting part of this initiative is how it offers certificates, so employees can then display their skills on their resumes or LinkedIn profiles.I think this is an important feature which not only encourages participation by way of offering recognition; it also helps IBM understand the type of skills they have.

>See also: 5 benefits of using webinars to train new employees

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, UK employers are spending less on training than other major EU economies.

Although this statistic doesn’t relate solely to blockchain, it does point to a basic attitude problem when we think about the skills gap.CTOs should look into how they can upskill their existing staff. This means they should consider educational platforms that can help, and they should remember that education doesn’t end in the classroom.

Make blockchain open

While universities across the world create thousands of courses, fustratingly, graduates still struggle to link their degrees to careers. For example, in the UK 11.7% of computer science graduates spend six months unemployed after completing their degrees, despite the huge demand for them. I think this points to a good reason for why CTOs and recruiters need to rethink how they currently engage with educational institutes.

Hope may be on the horizon with the recent launch of the Institute of Coding. With funding from the UK Government’s Higher Education Funding Council for England and elsewhere, the IoC, led by the University of Bath, aims to bring together a consortium of more than 60 universities, national and international corporations, SMEs, industry groups and experts in non-traditional learning professional bodies to bridge the divide.Information Age recently spoke with their director, Dr Rachid Hourizi, who explained how CTO’s can work with them to develop the type of teams they need. 

He said: “We are keen to develop new courses, so if you’re a CTO of a company and you just can’t get the kind of educated staff you need, or there are soft skills that are not being developed, we are enthusiastic to hear about how we can help.”

>See also: Interview with Dr Rachid Hourizi, Director of the Institute of CodingIn relation to blockchain, I also spoke with Professor John Domingue, Director of the Knowledge Media Institute at the Open University, who is currently working with IoC to better link blockchain education to the needs of industries.

He said: “With the IoC, we are developing courses that can bridge the demand from the workplace. We will introduce new blockchain courses in an agile and flexible manner, that means having people being able to learn while at work.”

>See also: Open University unveils FutureLearn MOOC platform“With the IoC we are also designing a new accreditation framework in-line with industry, this will be a way of mapping skills in a fine grain manner in key areas of blockchain, and other channels, like AI and cyber security. We then take this framework and we map it so students will have a life-long accredited learning record.

One can then link this record with jobs that may be available.”“Connected to that, some of our partners at the IoC and IBM are developing an automated career coach which we want to help link a students course to a career.”

“We at the Open University have been speaking with Reed and I think it signals to a future where learning will be more linked to the workplace.”

It is the era of decentralization powered by blockchain technology and the digital freelance space is not left out as Hirefreehands is expanding its network and outreach with blockchain technology to support growth, quality and cost-effectiveness.

Hirefreehands says its mission is to improve online freelancing by ensuring clients get value for every dollar spent and freelancers receive pay on a fair basis, employing blockchain technology to decentralize the process.

Already with more than 10,000 active users from 10 countries, Hirefreehands aims to bring and maintain quality within the digital freelancing space while achieving scale that will enable every individual and organization across the globe to participate in the wealth of expanding freelance opportunities.

Breakthrough Technology For The Freelance Marketplace

The new initiative employs blockchain’s decentralized platform to enable an emphasis on quality interactions, efficiency, unbiased and decentralized dispute resolution, and enhanced communication.

By decentralizing quality control, Hirefreehands is able to creates greater opportunity for companies and individuals engaged in freelance efforts across the globe.

It uses “proof of skill” to allow freelancers to manage recruitment through a blockchain system as well as “proof of process” to support quality control, project management and dispute resolution.

According to Sunkanmi Ola, Hirefreehands co-founder and CEO, the global freelance market is exploding as more individuals seek to share their skills online and more companies take advantage of this skilled labor, representing a significant challenge and opportunity.

He added that the company’s innovative platform is designed to make freelancing scalable across the globe while still supporting the highest quality in work, communication and fund transfer.

How HireFreeHands Works

Hirefreehands uses a Price Regulation Algorithm to automatically determine fair prices for jobs, eliminating the need for negotiation and protecting both clients and freelancers from unfair prices.

The decentralized platform uses a jury system for both skill verification and dispute resolution. Further, the KYC system uses blockchain for identity recognition.

The expected growth in global GDP from online freelance platforms is $2.75 trillion by the year 2025, according to a McKinsey Global Institute Report.

All of this enhanced technology serves to simplify the process of finding a freelancer or performing freelance work, Ola added.

In the past 18 months, blockchain has leaped onto the world stage and presented itself as the next-generation solution for many of the tech sector's most pressing problems. It's received influential endorsements from government leaders, industry titans and ambitious entrepreneurs in an unprecedented acknowledgment of the technology's prowess.

Related: The Cryptocurrency Job Market Is Exploding (Infographic)

To be sure, they aren't wrong. Blockchain, which was first developed to account for the popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is now one of the most dynamic technologies today. As The New York Times wrote back in January, "The Bitcoin bubble may ultimately turn out to be a distraction from the true significance of the blockchain."

All of this enthusiasm has created a surging demand for blockchain-related jobs. According to Upwork, a global freelance exchange, blockchain-related skills were the most in-demand on its platform in the first quarter of 2018. Moreover, TechCrunch reports that "Blockchain-related jobs are the second-fastest growing in today's labor market; there are now 14 job openings for every one blockchain developer."

TRADITIONAL PATHS MAY NOT FIT.

For decades, high school students had a beaten path to follow, and the formula was relatively simple: Do well enough in high school to attend a college, earn a degree in a desirable field and attain a high-paying job. A college degree was thought to serve as a promise for a well-paying, stable job.

Recently, that promise seems like more of an aphorism. In 2013, The Washington Post divulged, "Only 27 percent of college grads have a job related to their major.

" Meanwhile, college graduates are leaving school with unprecedented levels of debt.

The average student graduates college with more than $37,000 in student debt. Collectively, U.S. student debt approaches $1.5 trillion. In a head-turning study, Citizens Financial Group found that college grads designate a fifth of their salaries to student debt repayments, and they do so for nearly two decades after graduation.

Related: An Illustrated Glossary of Cryptocurrency Slang (Infographic)

Interestingly, as the labor market tightens, and companies struggle to locate candidates with a bachelor's degree, there is a growing consensus that a candidate's skills are more important than his or her formal education. Deloitte, a research and consulting firm with strong connections to the blockchain industry, supports this assessment.

A 2017 Deloitte study found that "aspiring workers should realize that a bachelor's degree is not all that matters to their future. In itself, a bachelor's degree is just a piece of paper. It's the skills -- and the occupation -- that matter more. When it comes to employment, that's the real goal of education."

In many ways, this isn't a particularly shrewd observation. There are plenty of successful people with viable, even extraordinary careers without attaining a bachelor's degree.

A BLOCKCHAIN EDUCATION

It's clear that those looking for a career in blockchain technology will be following a different script than tech entrepreneurs who came before them. With that in mind, what's the best way to strategically establish a career in blockchain technology?

What the blockchain industry needs are people who are continually developing their skills, and staying up to date with the industry's advancement. There are steps blockchain enthusiasts can take to start developing their career without having to sign up to a traditional university program or attend an expensive seminar.

1. BUILD THE BASICS.

Blockchain is unlike any other technology available. Understanding its unique value proposition is a critical building block of a blockchain education. Features like decentralization, smart contracts and Dapps are more than just buzzwords. They are the essence of the blockchain, and any successful blockchain professional will intimately understand them.

Related: 8 Benefits of Blockchain to Industries Beyond Cryptocurrency

More technical skills also form the foundation of a blockchain developer. JavaScript for web development and Solidity, a popular programming language for constructing smart contracts, are a great place to start. Not only do these skills help with a blockchain education, but they equip learners to freelance as a web designer while they learn to develop the rest of their blockchain-related skills.

In this case, a level of formal education can be helpful, but that doesn't mean aspiring blockchain developers need to enroll at a university. Instead, online education platforms like offer comprehensive courses.

2. CONSIDER CYPTOGRAPHY.

Assets are increasingly moving online, underscoring the importance of cryptography. Blockchain is renowned for its ability to protect and secure these assets, and it relies on cryptography to make this possible. Failure to appropriately employ cryptography can have devastating consequences for companies that depend on it for security.

High-level cryptography training is available online from reputable, affordable venues, like Coursera and Udacity.

Related: 4 Great Industries for Blockchain Advancement and Forward-Thinking Entrepreneurs

3. UNDERSTAND DISTRIBUTING COMPUTING THEORY AND APPLICATION.

Distributed computing is no longer a theory. In an age where reliability and security are two of the most pressing issues facing tech proliferation, distributed computing is the blockchain's solution. However, this is far from a refined practice.

There are still many areas in need of solutions. For example, issues of scalability and excessive energy consumption continue to plague its implementation. Students of blockchain technology need to study these issues so they can, later on, start to develop solutions to the problem.

4. MAINTAIN COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT.

Blockchain and the cryptocurrencies that it powers are unique for their active communities that help encourage their growth and popularity. There are hundreds of new cryptocurrency projects, and they can function as an on-the-job training mechanism for blockchain students.

Reach out to reputable, verifiable blockchain startups and offer your services with community outreach, which includes event organization, discussion leadership and other engagement-oriented activities. While this isn't a perceptible skill, it's an opportunity to engage and network with people in the field while also gaining personal insight into the industry and its community. It's a tangible way to begin participating in a blockchain-based career.

5. FORGE YOUR OWN PATH.

The blockchain job market is thriving, and those looking to get involved can follow their own path to success.

Rather than spending years at an academic institution to prepare for a blockchain career, these DIY strategies can streamline the process and make it more viable for just about anyone to attempt. The market is flourishing, and the opportunity is there for the taking.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/How-You-Can-Build-a-Career-in-Blockchain-13023809.php

As the number of sensors in vehicles, factory machinery, buildings and city infrastructure grows, companies are looking for a secure and automated way of enabling a mesh network for transactional processes. Blockchain appears to best fit that bill.

The total number of connected Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and devices is expected to leap from 21 billion this year to 50 billion by 2022, according to recent data from Juniper Research.

[ Further reading: What is blockchain? The most disruptive tech in decades ] 

The massive growth in IoT connected devices over the next four years, Juniper claims, is driven mainly by edge computingservices – the processing of data away from the cloud and closer to the source.

A substantial portion of the estimated 46 billion industrial and enterprise devices connected in 2023 will rely on edge computing, Juniper said, so addressing key challenges around standardization and deployment will be crucial.

Blockchain, the electronic, distributed ledger technology (DLT) that also contains a business automation software component – known as self-executing "smart contracts" – could offer a standardized method for accelerating data exchange and enabling processes between IoT devices by removing the middleman. That middleman: a server that acts as the central communication spoke for requests and other traffic among IoT devices on a network.

IT INSIGHTS

What is blockchain technology?


"Fundamentally, the idea is you don't have a central agent – no one approving and validating every single transaction. Instead, you have distributed nodes that participate in validating every transaction in the network," said Mario Milicevic, a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a leading authority on technology innovation that has more than 500,000 members.

Making a better supply chain
In a traditional supply chain setting, Milicevic explained, a central server authenticates  the movement of goods and materials from one location to another. Or a central authority could decide to halt certain processes based on pre-determined rules. In a distributed blockchain IoT network, the IoT devices on a peer-to-peer, mesh network could authenticate transactions and execute transactions based on pre-determined rules – without a central server.

Blockchain technology could also improve security through decentralized interaction and data exchange by bringing scalable, distributed security and trust to IoT devices, applications and platforms. The technology uses hashing algorithms to create an unchangeable record of transactions, and that information can be encrypted and only accessed through public and private keys.

Smart contract software, self-executing code that could be embedded on each IoT chip, could determine what action takes place when a condition is met. Those actions would only be executed when an incoming transaction authenticated.

"So, you don't need central agency to tell each node when to do something," Milicevic said.



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Blockchain ledgers decrease the time required to complete IoT device information exchange and processing time."It could be in an automotive manufacturing plant.

As soon as a certain part arrives, that part then communicates that to other nodes at that destination, which would agree that part arrived and communicate that to entire network. The new node would then be allowed to begin doing its work," Milicevic said.

The rise of edge computing is critical in scaling up tech deployments, owing to reduced bandwidth requirements, faster application response times and improvements in data security, according to Juniper research.Blockchain experts from IEEE believe that when blockchain and IoT are combined they can actually transform vertical industries.

While financial services and insurance companies are currently at the forefront of blockchain development and deployment, transportation, government and utilities sectors are now engaging more due to the heavy focus on process efficiency, supply chain and logistics opportunities, said David Furlonger, a Gartner vice president and research fellow.

For example, pharaceuticals are required by law to be shipped and stored in temperature-controlled conditions, and data about that process is required for regulatory compliance. The process for tracking drug shipments, however, is highly fragmented. Many pharmaceutical companies pay supply chain aggregators to collect the data along the journey to meet the regulatory standards.

Last year, SAP partnered with IBM to demo how IoT and blockchain could automate a pharmaceutical supply chain for both tracking and reporting purposes. SAP combined its Leonardo IoT software platform with IBM's blockchain cloud service to create a working model of a system that could track and manage pharma supply chains using smart contract rules.One misconception about blockchain, is that it replaces legacy systems.

"In fact, blockchain is a layer on top of enterprise applications."



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SAP also recently completed two proof-of-concept (PoC) blockchain deployments with customers: one was a smaller supply chain test evaluating millions of transactions on a Hyperledger blockchain using smart contract technology in IoT devices; the second was a much larger one that represented billions of transactions among 15 different customers using MultiChain open-source blockchain software without smart contract code on the devices.

The smaller PoC with smart-contract technology worked well, but was more expensive to set up because it required a blockchain developer – someone that's in short supply – to write the code, said Gil Perez, head of Digital Customer Initiatives for SAP.

"In the small pilot, the cost of operations and overhead was rather high. So, functionally it exceeded expectations, but from financial perspective it was very challenging," Perez said.

The second PoC addressed both scalability and cost, in that it proved the blockchain could scale to enterprise levels and didn't require a developer to write smart contract code for the IoT devices; instead the business automation ran on servers separate from the blockchain.

The MultiChain PoC was not as efficient as the Hyperledger model, but it cost less and it met the busienss requirements, Perez said. He added that the smaller PoC required more complex logic in the form of smart-contract code on IoT devices.

"The fact that you put the logic on a server doesn’t mean it's not automated," Perez said, referring to the larger PoC. "We have the flexibility to put the logic in different places. The deployment and business use cases need to consider not only the technological capabilties but the business and commercial implications."

SAP has been working with about 65 of its customers to develop blockchain augmented  software – something Perez said will soon be available."It just becomes a part of the upgrade cycle. It’s built into the standard software SAP provides them," Perez said. "If SAP has a standard application and we add the capability to extend or augment the application for blockchain capabilities, we believe it will help also accelerate the adoption of blockchain.

At its Sapphire Conference in May, SAP announced a blockchain cloud service for its customers -- something that's also becoming a popular option for companies that don't want to expend capital in order to test distributed ledger technology.

IBM also recently launched an IoT-to-blockchain service as an add-on to its existing IoT Connection Service. It enables IoT devices, such as RFID location chips, barcode scans or device-reported data, to be transmitted to a permissioned blockchain on IBM's cloud service. That blockchain-based network can then be used by a business network of computers to validate provenance.

Devices able to communicate data to blockchain ledgers can update or validate smart contracts. For example, as an IoT-connected shipment of goods moves along multiple distribution points, the package location and temperature information could be updated on a blockchain. This allows all parties to share information and status of the package as it moves among multiple parties to ensure the terms of a contract are met, according to IBM.




SAPNew uses for blockchain will continue grow because of the DLT's ability to provide new forms of security, according to B2B reviews platform G2 Crowd."Information security and corporate integrity have both taken a blow after events like the Equifax catastrophe, and companies are investing in blockchain as a precaution," G2 Crowd said in a report.

Blockchain enables secure access to IoT sensors
For example, global wireless network technology provider ABB Wireless adopted blockchain as a method for delivering decentralized security services for industrial systems in industries such as utilities, oil and gas, and transportation.

Cybersecurity for IoT is becoming more relevant as industries transition into the age of "smart" systems, which use tiny electronic devices to communicate with, and control, everything from building HVACs to international cargo shipments.

ABB Wireless is using a blockchain platform developed by Xage, a startup that officially launched earlier this month.ABB Wireless used Xage's security application running on edge gateways within a number of components at power utility substations. The mesh network enables secure, remote access to IoT devices to control the substations, allowing for everything from viewing maintenance data to rerouting power.

On a system with thousands or tens of thousands of IoT nodes, the possibility of hacking the network is remote at best."If you add a million more smart meters to a wireless network, you've just made that network harder to hack. Whereas in a traditional network, the more units you add, the more exposure there is to hacking," said Xage CEO Duncan Greatwood.

The blockchain app contains an encrypted and immutable table of security credentials, which allows field workers to log into a device – even if the substation is disconnected from a utilities' central data center due to an accident, such as a wildfire.

"Everyone's scared to death that someone is going to get control of the grid," said Paul Gordon, vice president of engineering and operations at ABB Wireless. "This provides a solution in a scalable way, so security doesn't become a huge burden. It allows for a more scalable solution while meeting needs of highly secured environment."

Combining the immutability of a blockchain distributed ledger with encryption means that the more end nodes that are added, the more secure the network becomes, unlike traditional relational database systems that have a single point of access. Blockchain-on-IoT devices are more secure because a cyber attacker would need to break into a majority of the nodes to gain controllable access to a system.

Blockchain is under-researched; CIOs remain cautious
Blockchain itself is still a wildly understudied technology. In an IEEE database of 40 million research papers, only 480 contain the term "blockchain," said Milicevic, who is a staff communication systems engineer at MaxLinear, a provider of high-performance broadband and networking semiconductor products.

[ Related: The top 5 problems with blockchain ]"

There is research, but it's at a very high level from what I've seen. I haven't seen anything really deep," Milcevic said.Many of the high-level level articles in the IEEE database are focused on potential applications, with many of those mentioning IoT networks and how a marriage with blockchain could improve supply chains.

There are, however, "very few examples" of real-world blockchain networks that have been deployed; that kind of information could provide businesses with data about the number of nodes, power consumption, and the efficiency of an IoT network before and after blockchain was deployed.

It would also offer examples of project failures, Milcevic said."We don't understand the cost or the security issues, such as what would happen if rogue nodes could overtake the network. Today, you still have a centralized authority that can shut the network down," Milcevic said.

"In decentralized network there is no central authority. I've yet to see a hard study on that. I think everyone is waiting to see what everyone else does. That's the challenge. No one really knows what everyone else is doing."

When there's no central authority and only a mesh network of automated nodes, it's scary," Milicevic said.For example, an IoT sensor manufacturer could place security backdoors in the device software that could be activated with a trojan horse or a virus.

"In fact, someone may have paid me as an employee of that company to install a back door that may allow me to come into your network without you knowing," Milcevic said. "If you're able to have more than 50% of computing power controlled in rogue nodes then the entire history of the blockchain could be overwritten with whatever you want."

One strength of a blockchain ledger, however, is that it cannot be overwritten; it is a write-once, append-many technology. So, the history of all transactions on the peer-to-peer network remains regardless of any intrusion.The lack of real world examples of blockchain deployments is one reason C-level executives are cautious about embracing the technology.

A recent survey of CIOs by Gartner highlighted that trend. Only 1% of the CIOs indicated any kind of blockchain adoption within their organizations, and only 8% said they were in short-term planning or active experimentation with blockchain, according to Gartner's 2018 CIO Survey.




Gartner"This year's Gartner CIO Survey provides factual evidence about the massively hyped state of blockchain adoption and deployment," said Furlonger. "It is critical to understand what blockchain is and what it is capable of today, compared to how it will transform companies, industries and society tomorrow."

As head of human resources for a rapidly-expanding company within the blockchain industry, I am constantly faced with a variety of challenges that are unlike any I’ve encountered in my nearly 10 years of experience working in the corporate and financial sectors.

Very early on, I realized that finding top professionals for this exciting, yet uncertain, space was going to require more than just an average hiring rubric, and assembling an efficient and collaborative team was going to require careful due diligence and thoughtful consideration.

I liken it to what’s known as a “Greenfield Site,” where we have a unique opportunity to build out a company from the ground up — complete with candidates from myriad practice areas and varying levels of experience. Instead of marching ahead with a traditional hiring strategy, I first asked myself:

How can you effectively hire for an industry that’s just beginning to formalize its policies, and what job-specific skills do you look for in potential candidates that have never heard of blockchain?

Over the past year, with the help of two top-notch technical recruiters, my team has hired 78 industry professionals, with 40 hired in the past three months. While this is certainly fast-paced growth, it’s not unprecedented. In fact, there has been a 320 percent growth in the number of blockchain jobs offered on popular hiring sites in the past 12 months, with a 52 percent increase in blockchain-related job searches from June to November 2017 alone.

The industry as we know it is changing, and companies are looking for bright, engaged, professionals from an array of different industries and career stages to provide their expertise. The following is a brief overview of my experiences, as well as my take on how other blockchain companies can compile an expert team in the most exciting and innovative field since the dawn of the internet.

Finding candidates

This past year has been overwhelmingly referred to as the “golden year of blockchain.” What was once an industry comprised of small-scale startups with largely unstructured teams has since flourished into a global industry with a current market capitalization of $269 billion. This is certainly promising news for the future of blockchain, but for HR professionals it means hiring top talent is surprisingly difficult. And that means it’s difficult to scale.

With rapid fluctuations in the space due to hyper-expansion and regulatory formalization, it’s becoming harder to ensure that prospective candidates have the necessary experience to understand the shifting requirements.In setting substantive recruiting expectations, I recommend starting from a standpoint of company culture and engagement.

Does this candidate fully understand the current climate surrounding the blockchain industry, or, perhaps more importantly, do they understand the mission of the company?

Do they have any relevant experience in the blockchain industry? And, if not, how has their prior experience prepared them to take on this upcoming role? These are some of the first questions I’ll ask in any interview.As the industry begins to gain mainstream momentum, hiring top candidates with blockchain expertise will become less of a rarity.

However, for the time being, finding individuals with a deep-seated understanding of the company’s mission, as well as a demonstrated interest in blockchain and cryptocurrency, is a far more achievable metric. As with any team, there’s certainly a learning curve, and rejecting candidates simply for their lack of experience could result in losing highly-qualified individuals.

Building a team

For most HR departments, building out a team is a formulaic process. Managers hire their direct reports with approval from senior executives. This is certainly true for blockchain companies. However, as startups begin to transition into fully-realized companies, new positions become necessary that might not have been pertinent six months ago.

Service providers with soft skills, particularly in the communications, legal, and marketing practice areas, are excellent examples of this. Of course, key skills needed as a startup may no longer be required for the next phase of growth so companies have tough decisions to make. In anticipation of new positions, in new departments, in new regions of the world, HR professionals should set up a precautionary hiring policy that establishes where incoming service providers will fit into the overall company structure.

Similarly, as blockchain companies continue to expand, HR professionals will need to ensure that internal protocols, including onboarding, performance reviews, and training programs, grow to meet the heightened demand. Regardless of size or scale, every incoming person should feel adequately prepared for their given position and understand the requirements expected of them. This cannot be overstated.

Fostering a future

Without a crystal ball, it’s impossible to accurately predict what the future will hold for blockchain. The industry is on an unprecedented trajectory, the likes of which even the most optimistic crypto experts could not have anticipated. For HR professionals, this ambiguity can present itself as a daunting and intimidating process.

However, I urge you to think of it more as an opportunity — to use this “Greenfield Site” to find top talent, create a team of experts in their field from around the globe, and foster the next generation of crypto specialists.

At my company, for example, we are working with education and research programs — establishing the Blockchain Technology Laboratory at the University of Edinburgh, establishing an Input Output Cryptocurrency Collaborative Research Chair within the Tokyo Tech School of Computing, and providing the ‘Haskell & Cryptocurrency’ course to students in Athens, Barbados, and soon in Ethiopia.

This lets us take our candidate search directly to the classroom, informing students about the promise of blockchain and inspiring them to solve real-world problems in this space.

The goal of our training courses is to extend the computer science training of participants and introduce them to Haskell, an elegant functional programming language, in the context of the cryptocurrency industry. At the end of each course, students are given the opportunity to apply for positions and continue their professional career in Haskell.

Through education programs like these, we have a unique opportunity to reach an untapped pool of global candidates, as well as to inform and inspire their future relationship with blockchain.

As HR professionals in the most fast-paced industry in the world, it’s our shared duty to find and cultivate collaborative teams, as well as to create an environment conducive to their long-term success. Amid such rapid expansion, it can be easy to lose sight of the qualities that make an effective team member.

However, with a clear vision, careful planning, and an acute attention to detail, not only can we turn once lofty ambitions into a concrete plan of action, but we can find top talent in a variety of industries to help us along the way.

Tamara Haasen is Head of Human Resources at IOHK.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/24/hiring-for-the-blockchain-revolution-how-to-create-an-expert-team...

Modern Consensus was on the ground in Berlin for BlockShow, a two-day festival boasting thousands of attendees, each one there to expand their understanding of blockchain technology and meet some A-list crypto-players.Between the public on-stage panels and the private conversations we had with attendees, one theme cropped up consistently:

it’s hard to acquire the talent and human resources necessary to take a large or small company into the new blockchain-enabled future.

We know the song all the crypto-kids sing: blockchain technology isn’t just about powering bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, it’s a “new internet” setting a higher standard for how information moves and is validated around the world.

This stuff isn’t even ten years old yet; this new internet is in its dial-up phase. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t wisened experts out there.

Most of them just happen to be too busy to go to work on someone else’s project.

“It’s difficult to recruit top blockchain talent at the moment because most experts prefer to do their own ICO, or set up a consultancy to better leverage their knowledge and share it with a series of clients,” said Antoine Verdon, founder of Swiss blockchain company Proxeus.

In simplest terms, the blockchain’s existing pros mostly want to work for themselves.

This sentiment is backed up by Marc P. Bernegger, a member of the “blockchain task force” that advises the Swiss economics minister on all things crypto.

“Some of the smartest blockchain people have been in the space for quite a long time and became financially independent from their digital asset holdings,” he said. “They get to do just what they want, and are not forced to work for others because of money.

”This situation is bound to change. As blockchain technology goes more mainstream, there will be an influx of widespread public interest (beyond all-caps “bitcoin” headlines) and savvy workers ready to handle crypto tasks.

“We will hopefully see emergent products that reduce the technical hurdles to harness blockchain, and let employees focus on improving and carrying out business processes,” said Verdon.

His comment can be interpreted as a subtle plug for his company Proxeus, which provides companies with a figurative blockchain toolbox (it’s been called “WordPress for blockchain” in the past), letting people with no technical expertise quickly and easily create their own blockchain applications.

In any event, today’s pool of young computer programmers will likely shift their attention to the blockchain space, bringing all their existing expertise with them as they begin to specialize in this “new normal.

”To any company looking to hire blockchain specialists, Bernegger and Verdon offer the following advice: look for people who have actually built blockchain solutions that solve real problems, then ask them to detail their solution step by step.

“Thanks to tools like GitHub, you have far better opportunity to test the skills and the knowledge of today’s tech people compared to ten years ago, and the talent pool is truly becoming global,” said Bernegger. “I think smart people focusing on blockchain have a very bright future.”

Dylan Love is an editorial consultant, contributing reporter, and fiendishly curious technology enthusiast. He owns no cryptocurrencies.

https://modernconsensus.com/cryptocurrencies/blockchain-jobs/

The blockchain market shows no signs of slowing down and this technology is one of the hottest skills in the freelance job market.

However, according to Tom Beno and Nate D’Amico, blockchain skills won’t matter in the immediate future. How can this technology become more accessible to developers? Let’s find out!

JAXenter: Blockchain developers need a far-reaching skill set which includes proficiency in software engineering, cryptography, mathematics, information security and the list goes on. How can we simplify this process in order to encourage more people to experiment with this technology?

Tom Beno: Beyond the skills you’ve mentioned, I would add that there needs to be a philosophical understanding of what solutions blockchain technology can provide. Once people can work backward from the outcome, the technology becomes the set of tools used to get there. The far-reaching skills needed can be taught and learned, but the thing that will compel people to experiment is a solution-oriented understanding of the technology’s use cases in a real business.

Nate D’Amico: For end users, most of it has to do with user experience design and the applications and services that will be sitting between the users and the blockchains. To use an example, we know that users are familiar with usernames and passwords. If you lose or forget your password you just enter your email, reset or recover it and get back into your account. In the blockchain world of private and public keys, a lost key typically means an orphaned account. Providing “password reset” type UX for blockchain-based applications, while maintaining security, can go a long way.

JAXenter: How can we make blockchain more accessible to developers?

It’s a marathon and we are just in the first couple of miles of this journey as companies understand how to map their various problems and workflows to a blockchain.

Tom Beno: Blockchain technology can be made more accessible to developers by utilizing open APIs in the platform design. Many of the most well-known blockchains operate off their own programming languages. This creates a higher barrier to entry for talent that uses Java, C++ or Python.

Nate D’Amico: This is the essence of what we are trying to solve with our blockchain and tooling offerings. Our view is that the best way to make blockchain more accessible for users and developers is to make getting started and the development of user experience as efficient and self-serviceable as possible.

The ideal is a simple object model to leverage the blockchain for varying use cases without having to worry about all the gory details of how things are working under the covers. An analogy would be that back in the day you used to have to know how database innards worked and how they were leveraging b-trees for storage and querying. But as tools like MySQL and Postgres came out, everything became more approachable and provided solid foundations to store your data with a simple SQL and query interface.

JAXenter: What is Catapult and how can people use it to build and deploy blockchain applications more easily?

Tom Beno: Catapult is the V2 release of the NEM protocol. As stated above, it uses an open API design to allow people to build and deploy software applications on both a public and private ledger. Catapult has been designed with features meant for real business use cases – things like aggregate transactions, recurring pulls and atomic swaps.

Nate D’Amico: Catapult is the second generation of our blockchain offering that delivers Version 2 of the NEM protocol – it powers the NEM public blockchain network. We have a “batteries included” approach to everything we deliver. Whether it’s in the open source solution, or our enterprise product line, at the end of the day we make it as easy and efficient for developers and users to get started.

For instance, we just released an open source development bootstrap tool that will start up a running Catapult service on your laptop in about 60 seconds – all you have to do is learn the APIs and programming against your test setup. We are also delivering a self-service developer lab running on various public clouds. This will allow developers a push button experience to get a free starter Catapult service going.

Outside of tools like this, it’s really the power of the NEM protocol in its simplicity and minimal object model, while providing extremely powerful on chain contracts for asset management, namespacing and the most advanced multi-signature account support.

Developers don’t have to write any contracts themselves, they just need to leverage the direct API calls like they would with any other REST API service.

SEE ALSO: “We are working hard to cultivate blockchain talent”

Blockchain and DevOps

JAXenter: Right now we perceive blockchain and DevOps as two different terms used in different contexts. But do they do well together? Do they have a shared future? 

Nate D’Amico: Definitely. There are two parts to that, one is how DevOps practices and tooling can make it more approachable and easy for companies and developers to get started delivering and maintaining distributed ledger solutions in production, at scale. The other part is how the practice of DevOps itself can leverage blockchain distributed-ledger technology its tooling and solutions.

For the former, as mentioned above, we strive for ease of deployment and self-service, so everything we do is approached with a goal of 100% automation and removing setup and configuration complexity from the end user. For the latter, we have a partner that has a DevOps related solution for the enterprise that is leveraging Catapult in its core for powering various features and security in its solution.

JAXenter: Do you think developers’ lack of blockchain skills will no longer matter in the foreseeable future?

Nate D’Amico: Yes! It won’t matter in the immediate future. That is our job and what keeps us up at night, besides working between EU and Japan time zones. We tell customers regularly, “You don’t need a blockchain developer, you need a regular developer who knows how to use SDK’s and talk to APIs, just like any of the other 20 services you are using.”


JAXenter: Has it become easier to include blockchain in a company’s backbone?

Nate D’Amico: It has. Catapult and other models out there are offering a BaaS (Blockchain-as-a-Service) so that companies can get a private blockchain environment established.It has but it’s still the early days. It has a similar feel to the “big data” space, where every company had a big data initiative.

It’s a marathon and we are just in the first couple of miles of this journey as companies understand how to map their various problems and workflows to a blockchain. It’s our job to accelerate that process and make it as easy and approachable as possible.

JAXenter: What are the new areas in which blockchain is likely to be used this year?

Nate D’Amico: There are some obvious ones that are already happening, at least in POC and pilot projects around the world. Most of them are on the enterprise side and have an auditing and reporting focus to them, such as logistic data logging, IoT sensor reporting, identity and access control status and, of course, tokens – whether publicly tradable cryptographic tokens, or private use ones used to track a level of asset ownership and reporting.

These will continue to be the primary solutions, but I think we will start to see more B2C type solutions going into production. Those can be loyalty rewards type solutions, payments or security and verification. As more people get pulled into the space, the breadth of solutions should continue to expand.

Thank you! 


We want YOU! 

We are looking for proposals for our Blockchain Technology Conference 2018 in Berlin, Germany. The Call for Papers is open and we want to see you on the panel of speakers. The deadline for pitch submissions is June 11th; what are you waiting for?

Gabriela Motroc @GabrielaMotroc All Posts by Gabriela MotrocGabriela Motroc is editor of JAXenter.com and JAX Magazine. Before working at Software & Support Media Group, she studied International Communication Management at the Hague University of Applied Sciences.

NEWS

Nikhilesh De   


Technology giant IBM is hiring nearly 2,000 people in France - and many of them will be focusing on blockchain technology, chief executive Virginia Rometty said Wednesday.In an interview with French news organization Le Monde, Rometty said IBM was hiring researchers for blockchain projects, among other focuses.

While she did not elaborate on what projects the researchers may be working on, she did note that the company currently works with Crédit Mutuel, Orange Bank, Generali, France's national railway system and Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (LVMH).During the interview, she said:

"In the next two years, we will hire 1,800 people in France at IBM. In January, we announced a project to recruit 400 people for research. These jobs will include AI, blockchain ... and the Internet of Things."

The move is just the latest in IBM's push to expand its blockchain research. Last week at CoinDesk's Consensus 2018 conference, the company announced it was partnering with environmental technology startup Veridium Labs to create a carbon credit token on the Stellar network.

Stepping back, the company has recently announced efforts to tackle advertising, humanitarian aid, business registries and even insurance, as previously reported by CoinDesk.

Note: Statements in this article have been translated from French.

IBM image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

If there’s any group in the global workforce that is sitting pretty it’s blockchain developers. Their success has unparalleled with anything in the stratosphere, yet they’re still receiving offers with compensation packages rivaling that of CEO pay packages.

And many of them have already become millionaires from investing in the coins of the market leaders they helped to build, including bitcoin and Ethereum, which means they’re less incentivized to join other projects for the size of the offer alone.


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Decentralized World

The thing to remember about blockchain pioneers is that they set out on the mission of a decentralized world not so that they could be subject to the whims of cryptocurrency prices. They are just as focused on the social impact of the blockchain as they are the success of their respective projects.

Consider Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin, who during the peak of the cryptocurrency market rally at year-end 2017 tweeted the following reminder to his followers –

*All* crypto communities, ethereum included, should heed these words of warning. Need to differentiate between getting hundreds of billions of dollars of digital paper wealth sloshing around and actually achieving something meaningful for society. 

https://t.co/aNpEnBNGsA— Vitalik "Not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) December 27, 2017

Buterin went on to use Venezuela as an example, whose economy is in tatters. He was dismayed that bitcoin’s price posts were getting more traction than “how Venezuelans were being rescued by crypto.”


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If the corporate culture reflected Buterin’s mission rather than dangling a six- or seven-digit compensation package in front of recruits, they might have more success attracting top blockchain talent.

Talent Battle

Meanwhile, blockchain startups are creating roadmaps with product release dates obligating them to have top development talent in-house, all of which is leading to projects getting stuck and helping to fuel the hiring frenzy. It’s not solely blockchain startups, however.

Global corporations including certain FANG stocks are no longer waiting on the sidelines as ICOs raise billions of dollars and the cryptocurrency market cap has balloons to nearly $400 billion, all of which has placed a high bounty on the pool for blockchain talent. If you have any doubts, consider again Ethereum co-founder Buterin.

As Hacked.com previously reported, Buterin tweeted about having received a job offer from Google.

David Schwartz, whose Twitter profile describes him as “one of the original architects of the XRP network,” told The Wall Street Journal how both a startup and a big tech play attempted to poach one of his team members, each of them offering the Ripple developer a million dollar signing bonus.

Meanwhile, the blockchain, a public immutable ledger where transactions are recorded and joined together in individual blocks, has become a catchphrase, one that can mean the difference between hits on a LinkedIn profile or not.

According to the Journal story, there are thousands of available jobs posted on the social platform hunting blockchain talent through the early part of May, reflecting more than a 150% jump versus all of last year.

But just as regulators have said they don’t want to rush into crafting any policy in response to market performance, employers should similarly take a step back before throwing everything but kitchen sinks out to software developers. Some companies are developing talent in-house, which is another route to consider.

But overall, hiring companies could be much more effective at recruiting blockchain talent if they understood the mission behind decentralization.

Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock.


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Lightning Labs co-founder and CEO Elizabeth Stark has announced a scholarship for female blockchain developers.In a post on Twitter, Stark said that she and Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song have secured several scholarship packages for the upcoming Programming Blockchain seminar, which is scheduled to take place on May 17 and 18 in New York City.

The scholarships will cover the admission fees for the full two-day course, which usually costs $4,000. One thing to keep in mind is that scholarship recipients will be responsible for any travel expenses “to and from the venue.”

elizabeth stark@starknessHey female developers ,

Want to build the future of bitcoin and cryptocurrency? @jimmysong and I organized scholarships for women for his awesome Programming Blockchain seminar, May 17-18 in NYC.





Apply here and spread the word:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeLq83-NNjFBHDRdAmUoRhz9KUehH_LW-f13wbz5gHXz5obUw/viewform …6:17 PM - Apr 24, 2018

New York City Programming Blockchain Scholarship Application http://programmingblockchain.com/

Should you be selected, you will be given a free admission (value: $4000 USD) to the Programming Blockchain Seminar on May 17-18, 2018 in New York City. You will still be responsible for travel to...docs.google.com

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Women developers can apply for the scholarship by filling out the form here. The form is rather simple other than a  programming challenge that the aspirants are required to solve.

As Stark has already suggested, those interested in attending the seminar can learn more about the curriculum here.There is a significant gender gap in the blockchain and cryptocurrency world (though the precise extent of the gap is still a point of contention).

Indeed, the Lightning Labs chief herself has previously suggested that the gender gap in blockchain might not be as severe as it’s made out to be.Still, efforts such as these are appreciable to help narrow this gap and get more women into the field.

TNW is a leader in technology publishing. Discover even more here: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/04/25/ethereum-smart-contract-integer-overflow