Could blockchain be your next big career choice?

Despite the crypto crash of 2022, you may be surprised to know that blockchain is alive and well — outside of crypto.

Cryptocurrencies were riding high at the start of 2022, following a significant rise in popularity and adoption, especially with the increasing interest in non-fiat digital assets. Bitcoin, the largest and first cryptocurrency, reached an all-time high of over $65,000, leading to a surge in institutional investment and public interest.

Other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum saw substantial growth, with the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms built on its blockchain. The year also saw several high-profile companies and financial institutions investing in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, which, at the time, lent legitimacy to an industry that has often been beset by concerns about security and regulation.

2022 may have started off well, but things had gone badly wrong by late spring, when crypto came crashing back to earth with a bang. Cryptocurrencies Terra and Luna failed, as did the trading platform Voyager.

Other failures included crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, BlockFi and Celsius. In November, crypto giant FTX collapsed, and the shock of its failure deeply impacted the volatile crypto market, which lost billions and fell below a $1 trillion valuation.

For those working in the crypto space, job losses hit hard. Around 23,600 employees lost jobs in the crypto sector up to December 2022, the industry’s highest number of layoffs ever recorded within a year. Coinbase shed around 1,160 workers, Kraken laid off 30% of its workforce and Bybit carried out 1,020 layoffs.

Given that environment, it could be easy to assume that a job in blockchain, the technology enabling the existence of cryptocurrency, is not a safe career path. It’s true that cryptocurrencies are what brought the existence of the blockchain to widespread knowledge, there in fact are many other industries making use of it too.

Blockchain technology is extensively used in the wilder finance sphere for payments, remittances, digital identity and asset management. It has applications in manufacturing and supply chain management, offering better ways to do traceability, transparency and accountability.

The healthcare sector has cottoned on, using blockchain’s ledger technology for secure sharing of medical records and data management, and global governments are using it for voting systems, land registry and identity management.

There are numerous other applications for the technology — in real estate, where it can be used for property listings, property transfers and mortgage processing — and in retail and gaming. Right now, its potential applications are still being explored and developed and the level of adoption and implementation of blockchain varies across different industries.

If this is an area that interests you, there are plenty of open roles to discover. The three jobs below take in finance, digital change and professional services. Plus, find plenty more blockchain jobs on the VentureBeat Job Board.

Performance Engineer (Blockchain), Ripple, San Francisco

Ripple’s mission is to enable payments every way, everywhere for everyone. It is looking for a Performance Engineer to join a growing team that is in charge of performance, scalability and reliability of the XRPL network. You will work with teams across the organization in acquiring performance requirements and load forecast metrics and participate in the full software release life cycle, from software design and development to the deployment of the products. You’ll also develop comprehensive load simulators and all necessary tools required for the setup and testing, conduct iterative performance testing; bottleneck detecting/removing; code profiling and comprehensive tunings at all levels (OS, network, software and database). To apply, you’ll require a Bachelor’s degree or higher in software engineering, computer science, or equivalent industry experience, and up to four years’ of working experience in software engineering. Apply for this position now.

Blockchain & Digital Assets Manager, Deloitte, Portland

Deloitte is expanding its Audit & Assurance Blockchain & Digital Assets practice and is seeking a Blockchain & Digital Assets manager, who will oversee day-to-day operations of engagement teams. You will work closely with the team to tackle accounting and other issues while using Deloitte’s cutting-edge technology. Plus, you’ll lead teams in providing internal controls specific to blockchain and digital assets services. To apply you will require a Bachelor’s degree in accounting or a related field (or equivalent years of relevant experience) as well as five years’ of public accounting or equivalent experience, and two years’ of experience managing and supervising teams. Get all the information on the job here.

Blockchain Software Engineer, SAIC, Chantilly

SAIC is seeking a Blockchain Software Engineer to lead key blockchain initiatives, including end-to-end designing and deploying of blockchain products and solutions, and to effectively communicate between developers, managers, and end users. You will create a repository/library of blockchain engineering capabilities, experiment with cloud native, open-source tools and advise on new tools in order to determine optimal solutions. To be considered, you will need a Bachelor’s degree in engineering and nine years of related experience, as well as extensive experience as a computer programmer or application developer, and at least four years’ experience working with cloud-based solutions, various open-source based frameworks, analytic tools and recognizing their weaknesses. See the full job description here.

Discover careers in blockchain, and much more, on the VentureBeat Job Board.