The crypto jobs market is heating up as the industry enters a new bull run.
Increased crypto prices and activity have resulted in a surge of applicants and postings on industry job sites.
Raman Shalupau, founder of the jobs board CryptoJobsList, told Cointelegraph that there has been 20–30% growth month-over-month for the number of companies active.
He added that much of the activity is from existing companies surviving the bear market: “I’m not seeing a specific trend of new companies entering the market just yet.”
According to Shalupau, hiring in the early phase of a bull run tends to be from existing companies, which in many cases had hiring freezes when the crypto market was in a slump.
The next round of hiring comes when new companies begin to seek talent, but this growth tends to arrive deeper in the cycle.
Recent: AI token prices soar: Is it all hype, or is there real potential?
Shalupau said: “That usually happens six months in a cycle or so when there is more VC [venture capital] activity when people feel that it’s okay. It’s here. Crypto is here to stay — again.”
“At least in previous cycles, it also came with the discovery of a new business model or understanding. For example, multichain is the new paradigm — so we need more analytics tools, right? Etherscan is no longer sufficient, so we need something like Nansen, for example,” added Shalupau.
But the new narrative has yet to be discovered at this stage in the bull run.
Crypto exchanges among top hirers
Shalupau points out that exchanges — one of the largest segments of the crypto market — are gearing up their hiring efforts significantly.
Research by Cointelegraph confirmed that over 1,000 jobs are open across the industry’s most prominent players: Binance, KuCoin, Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini.
Binance currently has upward of 350 job vacancies, while KuCoin is not far behind it, with 300 vacant positions. Coinbase has almost 200 roles open at present, up from only 70 in December 2023, while Kraken and Gemini are also hiring for around 100 and 50 roles, respectively.
Of the 350 roles available at Binance, 50 are entry-level or graduate roles for those without significant work experience, offering an entry point into the industry.
Another boon of the bull market, at least for candidates, is that average salaries increase.
For example, Shalupau said that in 2024, the average salary for an engineering role is $168,000, compared to $137,000 in 2022 and $135,000 in 2023.
With tempting remuneration packages, it’s understandable that the number of applications also increased in March.
The top three locations for hiring companies on CryptoJobsList are the United States, Singapore and the United Kingdom. Other hotspots include Hong Kong, India and Canada.
If you count “remote” as a location, it comes in second behind the United States.
Understand what career you want in crypto
Zara Mukatova, head of human resources at Cointelegraph, has also observed an uptick in the market. As lead of the newly relaunched jobs.cointelegraph.com, she says the jobs market is currently very strong.
“What I can say is site use increased three times since March, and the bull market started. I can 100% say I can see the difference,” said Mukatova.
Mukatova said that part of that rapid growth curve may also be due to marketing and increasing awareness since the launch. For this reason, drawing a one-to-one parallel between the growth of Cointelegraph and the market may not be possible.
As for the types of roles that are currently in demand, Mukatova says researchers, product managers and project managers are all highly sought after.
With it being a good time to be a candidate in search of work, Mukatova advised jobseekers to “understand themselves and what they want from their career.”
Recent: Over half of U.S. charities now accept cryptocurrency donations
“Instead of applying to 10,000 different jobs per day, it’s really valuable to understand what they want in their future and what they want to do,” she said.
Shalupau similarly advised all parties to be cautious and to do their full due diligence before accepting a role or offering a contract.
Most importantly, job seekers were advised to remember how fast things can change in crypto.
“Be aware that the bull market is not here forever,” added Shalupau — reminding everyone to make hay while the sunshine lasts.