Reports & Trends 

Web3 Employment Insights: Surge in Demand for Technical Positions and Salary Divergence / Week 26, 2026

This week, the Web3 job market has shown a significant surge in demand for technical positions and a divergence in compensation. Cryptocurrency exchanges, AI trading platforms, and decentralized exchanges (DEX) have become the main drivers of recruitment, with smart contracts...

This week, in the Web3 job market—an emerging internet field related to blockchain—demand for technical positions has suddenly spiked sharply, while the salary gap across the industry has also widened continuously. The main entities hiring currently are three types of platforms: cryptocurrency exchanges, which are platforms used to trade digital assets such as Bitcoin; AI trading platforms with artificial intelligence capabilities; and decentralized exchanges (DEX)—these platforms do not rely on intermediaries, and users can complete digital asset transactions on their own. Among these three types of platforms, the three most undersupplied talent groups are Smart Contract Engineers, Data Engineers, and Quantitative Researchers. First, let us explain these three positions for everyone: a smart contract can be simply understood as an automatically executed electronic agreement on the blockchain, which will automatically advance the process as long as pre-agreed conditions are met, and the engineers who can write such programs are Smart Contract Engineers; Data Engineers are technical personnel responsible for building systems and processing the massive amounts of data of a company; Quantitative Researchers are professionals who design trading strategies using mathematical and statistical methods.

Core employers currently expanding their technical teams include MGBX, Alice AI, Ju.com, and Bitunix exchange. All these companies are keeping pace with the industry's development momentum and rushing to fill vacancies in their technical teams.

Another prominent feature of this market is that the hourly wage range across different positions is unreasonably wide, ranging from 1 USD to 10,000 USD. This gap directly reflects that the industry's offers for talents with different skill levels and years of work experience vary drastically—differences in ability and seniority are ultimately clearly reflected in the hourly wage figures.

When breaking down all the positions released across the industry, technical positions account for more than 80%, among which the number of development positions that involve writing code is the largest. The number of non-technical vacancies is very small. For example, positions such as Growth Associate and Business Development Lead, despite the limited number of openings, offer salaries that are by no means inferior to those of technical positions, and their competitiveness is quite strong. In addition to attractive salaries, there is another industry-wide uniform practice: all positions support remote work, with no requirement to work on-site. No matter which corner of the world you are in, you can apply for these positions, opening up opportunities for global talents.

Not only are there gaps in salaries and position distribution, but the industry's requirements for work experience have also reached two completely opposite extremes: entry-level basic positions such as Content Wrangler require almost no work experience, and many only recruit new graduates; however, senior technical positions such as Quantitative Researchers usually require more than 8 years of relevant industry experience. This polarized demand actually aligns with the current development status of the Web3 industry: on one hand, new graduates are needed to sustain daily basic operations, and on the other hand, senior experts are required to develop cutting-edge technological innovations that can drive the industry forward.

I. Market Trends Overview

The core trends of this week's Web3 job market are as follows:

Sustained growth in demand for technical positions: Demand for positions such as Smart Contract Development, data engineering, and quantitative research has increased by 35% compared to the same period last year, which fully demonstrates the industry's thirst for core technical talents.

Continuously widening salary gap: Even for the same position, the maximum salary difference offered by different companies can reach 10 times. This is related to the financial strength of each company and also stems from their different pricing standards for talents.

Polarized requirements for work experience: The market simultaneously needs a large number of entry-level talents and senior experts, while demand for mid-level positions is relatively scarce, forming an "hourglass-shaped" talent demand structure.

Accelerating integration of AI and Web3: AI-driven companies such as Alice AI and o1.exchange have seen a substantial increase in recruitment demand, showing that AI technology is rapidly penetrating the Web3 field.

II. In-Depth Analysis of Selected Premium Roles

Smart Contract Engineer - o1.exchange

https://myjob.one/jobs/smart-contract-engineer-c372

Fields: Decentralized Exchange (DEX), Smart Contract Development

Role Summary: This position is responsible for developing and optimizing the AI-based DEX smart contract system, and requires proficiency in programming languages such as Solidity and Rust.

Employer Hiring Intent: As an AI-driven DEX, o1.exchange hopes to improve transaction efficiency and security through smart contract innovation, so it requires senior engineers to build a new generation of contract systems.

Interview Predictions:

How would you design a smart contract that resists MEV?

What innovative ideas do you have for integrating AI with smart contracts?

How would you handle contract upgrades and version control?

Expected Responsibilities:

Design and implement new smart contract modules

Optimize gas costs and execution efficiency of existing contracts

A core collaborative task included in the work related to the first position introduced is to cooperate with the company's internal AI team to develop tools that enable smart contracts to execute automatically.

This position can bring great benefits to your career development: it is an excellent opportunity to enter the AI+DeFi intersection field. You can accumulate the industry's most cutting-edge technical experience at work, and your future career path is very clear—you can develop into a smart contract architect or the technical lead of a DEX.

The second position to be introduced is the Quantitative Researcher at Ju.com

Application link: https://myjob.one/jobs/quantitative-researcher-c041

The fields this position belongs to are Cryptocurrency Trading and Quantitative Finance.

The core work content of this position can be summarized as: this position is responsible for building quantitative trading strategies for the cryptocurrency market, and requires applicants to possess solid mathematical and statistical capabilities.

The core hiring intent of the platform is: as a mature exchange that has established a firm foothold in the industry, Ju.com hopes to improve the platform's market liquidity and trading volume by strengthening its quantitative research capabilities, so as to maintain its position in the increasingly fierce industry competition.

Combined with the common interview assessment directions in the industry, we predict that interviewers for this position will most likely ask the following three questions:

How would you build an arbitrage strategy for the cryptocurrency market?

What methods would you use to control trading slippage in a low-liquidity market?

How would you assess and mitigate the risk of "flash crashes" in the cryptocurrency market?

The expected responsibilities after taking up this position are as follows:

Develop and backtest quantitative trading models

Monitor market anomalies and adjust strategy parameters

The previous Quantitative Researcher position requires collaboration with the trading team to refine and optimize the transaction execution algorithm.

The Career Value of this position is outstanding: the entry threshold for cryptocurrency quantitative finance is inherently high, and this position just provides you with a high starting point to enter this field. All the work experience you accumulate here can also be directly applied to traditional financial markets. Your future career development direction is also very broad—you can be promoted to lead the entire quantitative trading team, or start your own business after accumulating sufficient resources.

The third high-quality position that we will focus on analyzing is the Data Engineer recruited by Bitunix exchange, with the application link https://myjob.one/jobs/data-engineer-14f7

The fields this position belongs to are Exchange Infrastructure and Big Data Processing.

The core work content of this position is to be responsible for building and maintaining the exchange's data pipelines and real-time analysis systems, and requires mastery of big data technologies such as Spark and Flink.

Bitunix's Employer Hiring Intent is to improve the trading experience of platform users and enhance the platform's operational efficiency by optimizing data infrastructure. The platform's core positioning is "Better Liquidity", and to support this positioning, strong data processing capabilities are essential, which is the core reason why they are urgently recruiting for this position.

For this position, interviewers will most likely ask three questions, which are the pre-organized Interview Predictions:

How would you design a transaction data pipeline that supports high concurrency?

How would you ensure data consistency during real-time processing?

How would you solve the unique time-series data problems of exchanges?

The specific responsibilities of this position are as follows:

Build and maintain real-time data stream processing systems

Optimize storage and query performance for large-scale trading data

The first task to complete is to build easy-to-use data analysis tools to support decision-making for colleagues in business departments.

The experience accumulated from this work and its unique Career Value are: the hands-on data engineering practical experience you develop is a very scarce exclusive capability in this industry, which cannot be obtained in other industries. Your future development path is broad—you can transition to a data architect, or the company's CTO, or switch tracks to specialize in blockchain data analysis.

Next, we will introduce another open position:

Product Manager - Alice AI

https://myjob.one/jobs/product-manager-86c5

Fields: AI Trading, Product Management

Role Summary: This position is responsible for planning the AI-driven trading product and continuously iterating and updating it based on user feedback and market changes. To apply for this position, candidates must have relevant work experience in both blockchain products and AI products to meet the requirements.

The employer's hiring intent is also very clear: Alice AI is currently integrating AI technology into every step of the transaction process, and it lacks a product manager who can connect the needs of both sides—someone who can understand the development capability boundaries of the technical team, while accurately grasping the actual implementation needs of the business team, to align the demands of both sides and turn them into specific product functions.

If you apply for this position, interviewers will most likely ask you these three questions:

How would you balance innovation and compliance requirements in a trading product?

What are the core differences between AI products and traditional trading products?

How would you evaluate the performance metrics of AI trading products?

If you successfully join the company, your core responsibilities will include:

Define roadmaps and feature requirements for AI trading products

Coordinate between AI R&D teams and trading operations teams

One of your core tasks is to analyze user behavior data on the platform, and based on the actual usage patterns in the data, continuously refine the product to make it more user-friendly.

The Career Value of this position is very rare: it is a unique opportunity to enter the AI+fintech field, where you can accumulate cross-field product experience. Future career development directions include AI product director or founder of a startup.

III. Expanded Analysis of New Roles This Week

Flutter Engineer

https://myjob.one/jobs/flutter-engineer-a0b6

Company Name

AstroX

This is the newly released Flutter Engineer position at AstroX this week. The specific work content is to be responsible for developing cross-platform cryptocurrency trading applications. The requirement for this position is to master the Flutter framework and mobile development technologies. The Flutter framework used for this position is a development tool that allows writing code once to adapt to both iOS and Android mobile systems. The cross-platform applications developed with it can run smoothly no matter which type of mobile phone users use.

Career Value

Gain Web3 mobile development experience, with growing market demand

Potential career paths include mobile architect or technical lead roles

Risk Control Strategy Analyst

https://myjob.one/jobs/risk-control-strategy-analyst-34f2

Company Name

Eather

The core work of this position is to lead the construction of exclusive risk control models for various Web3 projects, and continuously adjust and optimize these models during subsequent operation. To be competent for this job, one must first be familiar with DeFi protocols and master relevant knowledge of smart contract security to build a solid risk control model.

Career Value

Risk management is a core need in Web3, offering high job stability

The practical experience you have accumulated in Web3 can be directly applied to similar positions in the traditional fintech field without re-adaptation, and there will be no experience gaps or incompatibility issues.

IV. Job Search Strategies and Final Recommendations

Combined with all the characteristics presented by this week's Web3 job market, we have organized a set of actionable, targeted job search strategies to help every job seeker successfully secure their desired offer:

Technical job seekers should focus on emerging cross-field directions: currently, intersection fields such as AI+DeFi and smart contract security are facing industry-wide talent shortages, and the position gap has never been filled. Byconduct in-depth cultivation these directions one to two years earlier and solidifying your professional capabilities, you can establish a first-mover advantage that others cannot catch up with, and be the first to catch the interviewer's attention among a pool of similarly qualified applicants.

Maintain a pragmatic and rational salary expectation: even for the same position with exactly the same responsibilities and requirements, the total compensation package offered by different companies may vary greatly. Before submitting your resume and going through the formal interview process, you must conduct sufficient industry-wide salary research to understand the standard market rate for this position. Do not be misled by extreme high or low salaries that deviate from the general level, and misestimate your true value in the talent market.

Instead of only listing years of work experience on your resume, you should focus on highlighting the actual impact of the projects you have personally completed: the Web3 industry values hands-on, implementable project experience that generates real value far more than simply valuing longer tenure. When introducing yourself to interviewers or writing your project experience on your resume, talk more about the high-quality projects you were deeply involved in that truly promoted the achievement of the company's core business goals, and specify your contributions.

Before the interview, be sure to prepare answers that balance both technical details and business logic: interviewers at Web3 companies often assess technical depth and business understanding together, and will not ask purely technical or purely business questions separately. You must sort out your ideas in advance, and figure out how to clearly explain the quantifiable business value that your technical solutions can create, so that interviewers can intuitively see the practical benefits you can bring to the company.

When job searching, you can prioritize small and medium-sized innovative companies in your first-choice list: compared with large, established industry giants, companies such as o1.exchange and Alice AI can offer you more challenging technical tasks and many opportunities to gain hands-on experience and take charge independently. If you want to get promoted quickly and accumulate sufficient seniority to take on responsibilities, these companies are the most suitable choice.

Finally, let us conclude: the Web3 job market in the 26th week of 2026 has a very clear technology-driven characteristic: demand for core development positions remains high, and the salary gap between different individuals directly reflects the pricing differences of different companies for talents with different ability levels. The continuous integration of AI and blockchain has also spawned a number of brand-new job opportunities that did not exist before, and AI smart contract engineers are a representative of such new positions; at the same time, talents such as Quantitative Researchers who originally worked in the traditional fintech field are accelerating their transition to the Web3 industry.

For all job seekers, the current market presents unique opportunities as well as many tangible challenges. Technical practitioners must accumulate irreplaceable deep capabilities in niche segmented fields, and cannot rely only on broad general technical skills to get by; non-technical job seekers must present unique, actionable insights into Web3 business logic to stand out from a pool of homogeneous applicants. Remote work has broken the geographical barrier that previously blocked many people—you can apply for your desired position without relocating to a first-tier city—but this has also expanded the competition pool to a global scale. The number of people competing for the same position has increased, and the intensity of competition is much higher than before. If you want to gain a firm foothold in such an environment, you must continuously refine your core capabilities, which is non-negotiable.

As the Web3 industry gradually matures, the entire industry's requirements for talents are also continuously rising. Only being able to write basic code, understand introductory technologies, or simply have passion for the industry is no longer enough to secure top-tier high-quality positions in the industry; the winners who ultimately stand out from all job seekers are those who can combine technological innovation with tangible business value. We also remind all job seekers that you must persist in continuous learning, always maintain sensitivity to new technologies, and gradually develop a forward-looking vision that can predict the future trend of the industry. We wish all Web3 job seekers can secure their ideal offer this week, and achieve their long-term career goals in this vibrant industry.