Solana ‘memecoin frenzy’ prompts uptick in Rust dev demand

August 7, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Ava Labs cuts 12% of staff to ‘reallocate resources’ toward expansion

November 7, 2023 Coin Telegraph

AVA Labs

Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer however stressed the firm is well-positioned with significant runway and resources at its disposal.

Ava Labs, the team behind the Avalanche Blockchain, has confirmed it laid off 12% of its employees in a recent wave of staff cuts, citing the need to reallocate its resources.

The firm’s founder and CEO Emin Gün Sirer confirmed the news on Nov. 7 after several former Ava Labs employees announced on X (formerly Twitter) they had been laid off.

“This reduction in force affected 12% of Ava Labs, and allows us to reallocate resources to double down on the growth of our firm and the Avalanche ecosystem,” Gün Sirer said.

Gün Sirer acknowledged that bear markets can be tough to navigate but iterated Ava Labs is well-positioned with significant runway and resources at its disposal.

Today we parted ways with some of our Ava Labs team members. We are no longer a 12 person startup, but we strive to capture the speed and energy of a small, nimble team.

This reduction in force affected 12% of Ava Labs, and allows us to reallocate resources to double down on the…
— Emin Gün Sirer (@el33th4xor) November 7, 2023

Ava Labs has 335 employees, according to LinkedIn, which suggests around 40 people were impacted.

Ava Labs vice president of growth and strategy Garrison Yang hinted that many of the layoffs came from the firm’s marketing team.

In an Oct. 6 post on X, former game growth marketing team-member Zach Manafort was among those revealing he was laid off. His departure comes despite being active in the Avalanche community since 2020.

It looks like my time at @AvaLabs has come to its end. Despite the recent layoffs, my time here has been filled with invaluable experiences and growth.

As I transition forward, I am open to explore opportunities in marketing or operations.

My passion for these fields combined…
— Trading Aloha (@TradingAloha) November 6, 2023

The layoffs came as a surprise to Manafort who thought “things were just getting started.”

Brandon Suzuki, who also previously worked in Ava Labs’ marketing unit, similar confirmed that he was laid off on Oct. 6.

Unfortuantely, I was let go from @AvaLabs this morning. If anyone has resources for web3 marketers, please let me know!
— Brandon Suzuki (@BrandonSuzuki_) November 6, 2023

The most recent round of layoffs comes only days after a 50% staff cut by nonfungible token marketplace OpenSea on Nov. 3.

Neil Dundon, founder of CryptoRecruit, told Cointelegraph that job openings are still hard to come by in the crypto industry, despite a recent uptick in crypto market cap.

“The Crypto market is still very tough unfortunately right now. Money is tight. VC has dried up.”

Dundon said there needs to be more signs pointing to a bull market before there’s any meaningful uptick in hiring again.

“This is how it has always behaved and it’s no different this time around.”

On the other hand, Kevin Gibson and Daniel Adler, the founders of Proof of Search and Cryptocurrency Jobs, both told Cointelegraph that they have seen a slight increase in hiring over the last few weeks.

Gibson attributed this to cryptocurrency firms acting under the impression that they may lose out on the talent pool when market conditions improve in 2024. He added:

“It is still an employer's market so we are encouraging companies to take advantage of this to keep building as it will be very different in 2024.”

Gibson noted that some of these positions were only 2-3 day per week roles as opposed to full-time positions.

Adler shared a similar sentiment:

“As we're approaching the end of the year, teams are doing a final hiring push and following through on their hiring plans and roadmap.”

Magazine: How to protect your crypto in a volatile market — Bitcoin OGs and experts weigh in

Binance, Coinbase and Gemini staff are among the least happy, data suggests

July 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

amber group

Crypto exchange Binance said its “hardcore” work culture could explain some of the results, while recruiters warn the data should be taken with a grain of salt.

Crypto exchanges, including Gemini, Binance and Coinbase, are home to some of the least happy employees in the industry, according to data derived from Glassdoor — though some argue the results may be skewed.

A quadrant chart by tech recruitment firm TrueUp — understood to have collated data from job review platform Glassdoor — mapped out how crypto firms stack up regarding employee happiness vs. growth.

27 of the most valuable cryptocurrency firms were placed on TrueUp’s quadrant chart.

*A chart depicting the happiest, least happy workers and fastest and slowest growing cryptocurrency firms. Source: TrueUp*

The chart shows defunct crypto lender Celsius, crypto exchange Gemini and crypto trading firm Amber Group, with the least happy employees, according to data gleaned from 80, 139 and 42 reviews, respectively.

Binance and Coinbase also appear on the left side of the chart, with the respective Glassdoor listings showing a total of 1,257 reviews.

Glassdoor doesn’t have a happiness metric, but it does gauge whether the reviewer would recommend the company to a friend, whether they approve of the CEO they worked under, and whether the reviewer had a positive outlook for the company.

Binance attributes score to ‘hardcore’ values

Speaking to Cointelegraph, a Binance spokesperson explained that the firm seeks to hire candidates “who can thrive in a truly high-performance environment” in addition to being “obsessively focused on delivering for our users.”

They explained that not every Binance employee is cut out to be “hardcore” — one of the firm’s core values:

“It also means that sometimes, we have some who are not able to thrive in this unique, brutally fast environment, and we have to accept some negative reviews as a result.”

“Negative feedback enables us to address problems, and we’re on a constant journey to improve our employee experience,” the Binance spokesperson added.

*Glassdoor summary of Binance. Source: Glassdoor*

Cointelegraph also reached out to Coinbase, MoonPay, Bitpanda and 21Shares for comment but did not receive a response by publication. Gemini declined to comment.

Glassdoor concerns

Glassdoor reviews are user-submitted, self-reported information. In 2017, recruiters raised concerns over the legitimacy of Glassdoor data, suggesting that reviews can be easily faked or manipulated.

However, Glassdoor states that every review goes through a “moderation process” before it is approved for publication on its website.

Neil Dundon, the founder of Crypto Recruit, told Cointelegraph that while the Glassdoor data is “speculative,” it appears as though employees “building infrastructure” are more satisfied than those working at exchanges:

“The sadder employees may not be as fulfilled given they are working in a more speculative/exchange environment whereas the right side are actually building infrastructure for blockchain, so these employees may feel they have more purpose in their work.”

The large staff layoffs among top-tier firms have likely been factored into the figures, Dundon suggested.

“Across the industry in general, though, it’s hard to feel happy in your job when there is underlying insecurity among employees with all of the layoffs that have happened over the last year,” he said.

The silver lining, according to Dundon, is that “the worst” may be behind crypto employees now.

Meanwhile, the TrueUp chart suggests the “happiest” workers in the industry came from Ava Labs, the team behind the Avalanche blockchain; cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider Blockchain.com; and Fireblocks, an institutional digital asset custodian.

Glassdoor data also shows that Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius, was one of the industry’s most disliked CEOs, with only 27% of past and present Celsius employees “approving” of him.

Brian Armstrong and Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the CEOs of Coinbase and Binance, respectively, have 69% and 65% approval ratings — lower than average for technology-based CEOs.

Magazine: Can you trust crypto exchanges after the collapse of FTX?

Crypto lawyers to be in demand as regulatory pressure reaches boiling point

January 26, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Aaron Lane

Commercial lawyers with a solid knowledge of blockchain and crypto tech will be in particularly high demand.

Crypto-versed lawyers will play an increasingly important role in Web3 firms — particularly after the implosion of FTX and the industry braces for regulatory turbulence, two legal academics believe.

Boston Law School professor and chief compliance officer at crypto exchange Bitstamp, Thomas Hook, told Cointelegraph that Web3 lawyers will soon become “business differentiators” because they’ll be faced with the tough task of helping firms navigate through legal and regulatory uncertainties.

This will ultimately determine how fast firms can take their products and services to market, Hook explained:

“Given the lack of clarity in many regulations and the complexity, Web3 companies will continue to need legal and compliance representatives to support them. These types of individuals are becoming business differentiators as they can help or hinder a business to get to market quickly in a legal and compliant manner.”

“Without them, companies could face setbacks as regulators are looking to get a handle on the industry,” Hook added.

Senior Research Fellow Dr. Aaron Lane of RMIT’s Blockchain Innovation Hub told Cointelegraph that in the current environment, Web3 companies should play it safe and resort to legal advice where appropriate.

“Entrepreneurs are used to making decisions under economic uncertainty but are not as good at operating under legal uncertainty."

Lane explained that the pace of blockchain-based innovation, paired with over 50 independent digital asset bills introduced into the United States Congress in recent times further illustrates the need.

He believes that some of the bettWeb3 lawyers will come from the commercial law sector, which is a "crucial" foundation for lawyers in the crypto field.

“A good Web3 lawyer will be a good commercial lawyer. The best Web3 lawyers in the field today started out as commercial lawyers of one kind or another and I expect that core foundation will continue to be crucial.”

“Knowledge of the technologies that make up the Web3 stack will be increasingly in demand over the next decade,” Lane however stressed.

For now however, the sector remains “very niche”, according to CryptoRecruit founder Neil Dundon.

Lane added that most legal representation for Web3 firms is offered by external counsel instead of in-house lawyers, which focus more on cases relating to financial services and securities laws.

FTX collapse could see crypto sector layoffs accelerate

November 15, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Blockfi

While the full impact of FTX’s collapse is still unfolding, some have already warned of an increase in layoffs to come “in the months to follow.”

The fall of crypto exchange FTX and potential resulting contagion could lead to an acceleration of crypto-company layoffs in the coming months, recruitment specialists warn.

A Nov. 14 report from crypto data aggregator platform CoinGecko found that as of Nov. 13, the crypto space has seen 4,695 employees let go in 2022 so far, presenting 4% of staff cuts across all “technology startups.”

However, the authors of the report warn that crypto layoffs could increase in the coming months when the “full impact” of FTX’s sudden collapse takes effect:

“With the collapse of FTX since November 2 and its full impact on the cryptocurrency space still unfolding, further cryptocurrency layoffs may occur in the months to follow.”

Speaking to Cointelegraph, CryptoRecruit founder Neil Dundon argues that while FTX’s events will cause some layoffs, it hasn’t changed the broader trend that crypto recruitment follows crypto prices.

“Layoffs have been consistent effectively following the same trend as crypto prices. FTX hasn’t changed that broader trend albeit a tragic event,” he said, adding:

“There will be layoffs because of it but that will present opportunities for good projects to scoop up good talent which we are collecting.”

Kevin Gibson, the founder of recruitment firm Proof of Search was less optimistic, sharing that he had one candidate that was due to start employment today but had his offer “pulled” during the first call with the company.

Gibson said it was hard to comment on how the FTX collapse will shake out as it’s “changing daily” but said his candidate’s experience “will not be an isolated incident.”

Companies across the crypto sector have already undergone a number of layoffs throughout the year as a result of the market downturn.

Among the most recent staff cuts in the industry include payment processor Stripe’s layoff of 1,000 employees, Flow blockchain developer Dapper Lab’s 22% cut, and venture capital firm Digital Currency Group’s 10% layoff. All layoffs took effect in early November.

Digital asset-focused investment firm Galaxy Digital was also reported to be eyeing off a 20% cut on Nov. 1.

Coinbase is understood to have cut another 60 staff on Nov. 10, according to Yahoo Finance.

The latest CoinGecko report follows an earlier Nov. 4 report which looked into the cities most impacted by cryptocurrency layoffs.

At the top of the list was San Francisco — home to Silicon Valley, one of the world’s largest technology and innovation hubs — which was followed by Dubai, New York City and Singapore.

Crypto security experts raking $430K salaries amid 2022’s hacking spike

August 23, 2022 Coin Telegraph

<div>Crypto security experts raking 0K salaries amid 2022's hacking spike</div>

Blockchain security

The demand for blockchain security experts comes amid a rise in crypto hackings in 2022.

The rise of crypto hacks over 2022 has skyrocketed demand for blockchain security experts, with some auditors making upwards of $430,000 per year.

Speaking with Cointelegraph, blockchain recruitment firm CryptoRecruit founder Neil Dundon said that while security audit services have long been in demand, the rise of decentralized-finance (DeFi) protocols has opened up opportunities for auditors to review potentially vulnerable smart contracts:

“There’s always been a demand for security auditors [...] But since DeFi apps have been out there, there has been quite a big increase in demand for security audits across the space because one small vulnerability in the protocol can potentially lead to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars.”

A report from Chainalysis earlier this month revealed that hackers extracted more than $2 billion from cross-chain bridge protocols alone this year.

In a Bloomberg report on Aug. 22, CEO of decentralized lending service Morpho Labs Paul Frambot said that crypto security audits have moved from a “nice to have” business expense to a “must have” one.

“Security is, in my opinion, not taken sufficiently seriously in DeFi,” he said.

The rise in demand for crypto security auditors has seen a plethora of “for hire” ads across the industry.

According to job advertisements posted on Cryptocurrency Jobs, blockchain audit companies mostly look for experienced programmers with an understanding of blockchain technology, cybersecurity, and cryptography.

While most security audit salaries fall within the $100,000 - $250,000 range, some companies are willing to pay upwards of $430,000 per year, according to Web3.career’s job board.

Crypto recruitment firm Plexus Resource Solutions Zeth Couceiro made a similar comment to Bloomberg, noting that in some cases, blockchain security auditors have been raking up to $400,000 annually.

Couceiro added that these auditors tend to make about 20% more than Solidity-focused developers, which is the most popular programming language used to deploy smart contracts on Ethereum and other Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible blockchains.

Among the top vulnerabilities that security auditors look for in smart contracts include timestamp dependency, reentrancy attacks, random number vulnerability, and spelling mistakes.

The Bloomberg report noted that venture capital firms have already poured $257 million into crypto security audit companies this year, which is up 38.9% from all of 2021, according to CB insights.

Neil Dundon

Binance attributes score to ‘hardcore’ values

Glassdoor concerns

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