5 top crypto career opportunities for Nigerians
Any ardent Twitter user who follows a sizable number of the Nigerian tech community would have in recent times noticed some job announcements from platforms like Buycoins, Binance, Luno, Quidax, and a few others looking for a Fullstack Engineer or Principal Engineer or Head of Desk.
It is a growing trend in the cryptocurrency market in Nigeria despite being nascent. In February, Patricia Technologies, a cryptocurrency exchange began the search for a senior blockchain engineer.
The cryptocurrency job market in the country is growing alongside the global market. For instance, research by Monster listings for jobs mentioning either “cryptocurrency,” “bitcoin,” or “blockchain” has risen 194 percent year-over-year, from 2018 to 2017.
Despite the prohibition placed on banks from transacting with businesses in the cryptocurrency by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) investors are moving ahead to secure the best talents for different expansion dreams. Below are four of the career paths you should consider if you are considering the space. Locations are not always important as most of the positions can be done remotely.
Full-stack Engineer
A full-stack developer is a web developer or engineer who works with both the front and back ends of a website or application - meaning they can tackle projects that involve databases, building user-facing websites, or even work with clients during the planning phase of projects.
The phrase full- stack evolved from a technical descriptor meaning the full set of primary technologies that comprise a complete technical solution. It typically means the database and operating system (back end) up through and including the user interface (front end).
According to one expert, when you ask a developer “Are you full-stack?” you are actually asking “Are you a software engineer?”.
A lot of crypto employers in Nigeria are looking for developers who know how to work on all the parts of a site, so they can use the best tools for the job regardless of whether it’s technically “front end” or “back end”.
Public relations
The industry is still growing and faces a lot of heat from authorities very often, plus a lot of people are coming into the market who have little or no idea of what they are getting into. Hence, it is going to require a lot of education to get people, investors, and regulators fully comfortable with the market.
A public relations officer tries to convince the audience to promote the idea of the cryptocurrency and get the audience to buy the product. For cryptocurrency to continually succeed, wouldbe users and investors need to know it exists - and how it works.
PR people are storytellers. They create narratives to advance their agenda. PR can be used to protect, enhance or build reputations through the media, social media, or selfproduced communications.
A PR professional is also qualified for communication roles like the ones listed by Luno recently.
Customer Service
Though underrated, customer service is one of the most important roles at any company. It’s relatively accessible and has a lower barrier to entry than the more technical fields such as engineering and data analytics.
Buycoins describes their customer service reps as Customer Success Associates because the ultimate goal is for customers to feel satisfied and accomplished after using their products and services.
A Customer Success Associate is dedicated to guiding customers and answering their queries, aiding in the onboarding process, and efficiently resolving issues that customers may experience.
Customer Service is a field that most employers overlook, but crypto exchanges fully understand that at the end of the day, customers make the business so it’s essential to keep them satisfied at all times.
Some skills required to be a customer service professional include clear and efficient communication, empathy for the customers, and passion for the product. Really great customer success associates also go the extra mile to really understand the products and services that the company is building from a technical standpoint.
Senior Blockchain Engineer
Blockchain engineers or developers find themselves in one of the most marketable career paths. They are programmers who create applications for blockchain. They typically have a lot of experience working with software languages including Python, Javascript, and C++ before becoming blockchain developers.
Aspiring blockchain engineers need to be comfortable with learning as they go since it is a new and emerging space. This may require adopting a new mindset that focuses on efficiency, scalability, and distributed computing. It is more than just another programming paradigm.
Experts also suggest learning about concepts like incentivisation, supply, and demand, and opportunity costs might be vital to understand in the blockchain development channel. Hence, effectiveness as a blockchain engineer requires a hybrid of a junior economist, a software developer, a data geek, and an auditor.
Data Analyst
Binance recently put up an opening for data analysts but for its Asia business. Big data analytics is very crucial to the cryptocurrency market. Where blockchain gets put to use, big data analytics helps to show businesses, no matter their size more details on every transaction. This extra logging of transactional data makes the adoption of cryptocurrency and the blockchain easier.