US Blockchain Engineers Earning as Much as AI Specialists
The fast-growing blockchain technology sector has created a high demand for talent and this has consequently resulted in blockchain engineers being among the best-remunerated in the tech sector.
According to CNBC, the average pay for blockchain engineers in the United States is between US$150,000 and US$175,000 making it comparable to what developers who specialize in another high-demand field, artificial intelligence, make. The two fields now currently offer the highest-earning specialized engineering roles. Typical software engineers make an average of US$135,000.
Surge in Openings
This comes at a time when the job postings requiring blockchain technology skills have increased dramatically. For instance, Hired, a San Francisco, California-based tech sector recruitment firm which provided CNBC with the salary stats in the tech sector, has seen a 400% increase in the job postings seeking employees with blockchain technology skills since late last year.
“There’s a ton of demand for blockchain. Software engineers are in very short supply, but this is even more acute and that’s why salaries are even higher,” Hired’s CEO, Mehul Patel, told the business news TV channel.
This is similar to a finding by jobs site Glassdoor which saw job listings related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies increase by 300% in August 2018 compared to the same period last year. In the United States, most of the blockchain-related jobs are located in New York City (24%) and San Francisco (21%). Outside the United States the top-five cities with the highest number of blockchain-related job openings were London (16%), Singapore (7%), Toronto (7%), Hong Kong (6%) and Berlin (4%).
Top Destinations for Blockchain Talent
Per Glassdoor, some of the top-hirers are startups such as Circle, Kraken, Figure, Coinbase and ConsenSys though established firms such as Oracle, IBM, KPMG and Accenture also feature in the top ten.
The findings by Hired and Glassdoor also echo a similar conclusion drawn by leading freelance jobs website Upwork. As CCN.com reported two months ago, blockchain was the fastest growing freelance skill on the telecommuting platform in the United States for the second consecutive quarter. The 2018 Q2 Upwork Skills Index also showed an increase in demand for individuals proficient in the programming languages and frameworks that are required to fill blockchain developer or engineer positions.
Some of the programming languages required in the blockchain technology field include Go, Python, JavaScript and Java. The C++ programming language, which is the language employed in coding the most commonly used client of bitcoin, Bitcoin Core, is also considered fundamental. Solidity, a language created by the Ethereum project team specifically for writing smart contracts, is also required in the blockchain sector.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
