from Gergely Orosz | by Gergely Orosz

One very interesting trend I’m hearing: everyone is struggling to hire senior engineers, designers, tech leads. Except. Some well-funded web3 projects that are smashing it thanks to excitement, cash compensation + (token)upside. Keen to learn more on this. (DMs also open)

A huge difference to early-stage startup hiring vs early-stage web3 hiring: equity. Startup equity is illiquid till exit (5-10 years) web3 tokens are liquid as soon as they vest. Solana founding employees 100x’d in a year, those joining in July already 10x’d. And they can sell! t.co/NydfDHNs59

How do some of these places hire? The opposite of big tech: “They found me over Discord after they saw my open source contributions. Two chats with founders, no Leetcode. Offered 500% (!!) more than what I make, in USDC. I saw no reason to not accept and now I kinda like it.”

I’m personally not an advocate for web3, especially not anything to do with PoW, but the dynamics of hiring are something I cannot go past, as it impacts the job market. “web3 (cash) base salaries seem high for sr engineers in the US. Anywhere from $200K to $500K(!!)”

“I’ve talked with 10-15 web3/NFT places and base salaries are in the median around $230-300K plus equity or tokens or whatever on top. This is higher than the Series A $150-190K offer I’ve seen” - a sr eng in NYC. Interesting how higher these companies go in cash comp…