Finding the best blockchain developer for your cryptocurrency enterprise, project, or business can be a difficult process. Unlike traditional developers, skilled blockchain developers can be few and far between.
The highly specialized nature of blockchain development requires a deep understanding of the technology that drives blockchain-based platforms and apps, a strong command of security and cryptography, and extensive experience with the languages and protocols that drive the blockchain industry.
The process of hiring a blockchain developer can incur a significant time cost — businesses seeking to hire blockchain developer talent must screen hundreds, or even thousands of applicants in order to find a candidate that meets the unique requirements of their project.
If you’re planning on launching a blockchain project or integrating blockchain technology into your existing tech stack or platform, it’s critical that you engage highly experienced blockchain developer talent. This article breaks down the most important factors to consider when screening and hiring blockchain developers.
Why Hire a Blockchain Developer?
Before you begin the hiring process it’s important to carefully assess the reasons you need to hire a blockchain developer. Hiring a talented blockchain developer is a necessity for any blockchain enterprise or project, but there are many reasons that an organization or business of any scale may seek to engage blockchain dev professionals.
Blockchain developers are critical assets required to develop and deploy blockchain technology. If you’re building decentralized applications, or dApps, launching DeFi platforms, or creating blockchain-based platforms such as play-to-earn games or cryptocurrency exchange platforms, you’ll need to engage a blockchain developer.
Talented blockchain developers possess key skills and experience in computer science, cryptography, and decentralized ledger technology, and can assist businesses in:
- Streamlining and simplifying blockchain technology integration
- Improving data security, minimizing the risk of data leaks or exploits
- Cost minimization through the elimination of third-party intermediaries
- Minimizing the risk of fraud
- Developing and launching dApps, DeFi platforms, and other blockchain use casesdfd
Skills to Look for in a Blockchain Developer
If you already understand why you need to hire a blockchain developer, it’s important to develop an understanding of the key skills that a blockchain developer must possess.
Programming Proficiency
It’s important to make sure that any blockchain development expert you hire possesses extensive computer science experience and knowledge. Programming language expertise is a fundamental element of any blockchain developer’s skill set.
Blockchain networks and protocols are constantly changing, updating, and evolving — a blockchain developer that possesses and deep understanding of the most commonly used programming languages and systems used within the blockchain industry, such as Solidity, Rust, Python, and React will stay up to date with the latest development in the blockchain industry.
Blockchain developers building blockchain-based apps should also possess a working command of Node.JS, C and C++, and Go. Depending on the requirements of your project, you may also want to ensure that the candidate you work with has experience in working with Object Oriented Programming Structure (OOPS), multithreading implementation, and a broad understanding of programming language syntax.
When assessing a potential blockchain developer candidate, it’s important to make sure that they maintain active within the blockchain industry — tools such as Cryptrain’s AI-powered code analysis screening technology streamlined and automated this process.
Cryptography and Security Experience
Cryptography is the driving force behind the blockchain revolution — highly proficient blockchain developers must understand the key cryptographic principles behind core blockchain development practices.
A blockchain developer must, for example, be highly familiar with Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), as well as a deep understanding of hash functions, data encryption, and the security protocols used within the blockchain industry.
It’s critical to ensure that the candidate you work with is able to succinctly express the key features of Secure Hash Algorithms, as well as a robust understanding of public and private keys.
Security is paramount within the blockchain ecosystem — it’s critical to engage the services of a blockchain developer that is able to create secure blockchain solutions for your business or project.
Data Structure Expertise
Blockchain developer skills aren’t limited to blockchain expertise alone — blockchain technology, at a fundamental level, is driven by the decentralized management of data structures. A blockchain developer must, therefore, possess robust data structure knowledge.
Interoperability is rapidly becoming one of the most important elements of blockchain development — if you’re planning on building or deploying a blockchain solution that connects different blockchains or siloed data, you’ll need a blockchain developer with strong experience in working with APIs and decentralized interoperability architecture.
Blockchain networks and blockchain applications are highly data-intensive. If your blockchain project or platform is heavily reliant on data management, it’s important to engage the services of a blockchain developer with experience in linked lists, hash tables, acyclic graphs, and big data management concepts such as Hadoop and MapReduce.
Blockchain Expertise
Learning blockchain technology terms and requirements can be complicated, but if you’re focused on hiring the best blockchain developer, you’ll need to develop an understanding of the key skills required of a blockchain expert.
Any blockchain developer you hire must possess a high level of proficiency in blockchain solutions and should understand blockchain concepts that range from smart contract development to the differences between various types of blockchains.
A project or business seeking to develop blockchain applications, for example, will have significantly different requirements than an enterprise seeking to develop blockchain protocols within the decentralized finance ecosystem.
If you’re planning on building blockchain solutions that integrate smart contracts, it’s essential that you ensure your blockchain developer is able to compose, audit, and deploy highly secure and reliable smart contracts in an efficient manner.
Some key competencies that are important to verify when screening a blockchain developer include proficiencies in distributed ledgers, consensus mechanisms, dApps, layer 2 or scalability solutions such as sidechains or sharding, and blockchain tokenomics.
Blockchain Development Tool Experience
There are many blockchain development tools that a blockchain developer must understand and use when building blockchain architecture or interacting with blockchain networks.
At a basic level, a blockchain developer must possess experience in working with blockchain explorers, alongside basic blockchain development tools such as Caliper, Composer, and Drizzle.
Experience in working with Ethereum-specific tools and platforms such as Truffle, Ganache, and Metamask is critical when working with Ethereum-based applications, alongside proficiency with Solidity and smart contract development tools such as Remix IDE.
Soft Skills and Secondary Skills
In addition to blockchain expertise, there are a number of secondary skills and soft skills that must be assessed when screening potential blockchain developer candidates for your role. If you’re building a blockchain-based web app, it’s important to ensure that the developer you work with has an understanding of web development practices, for example.
It’s also essential to ensure that a blockchain developer possesses soft skills such as communication skills, networking ability, and is a positive fit within your team culture. While often overlooked, soft skills are a critical factor that must be assessed when screening hires through the interview process.
Where to Find Talented Blockchain Developers
Finding the right blockchain developer for your business or project can be a complicated, difficult task. There are a number of blockchain and Web3 job boards online today, but creating, tracking, and managing responses to job listings represent a significant administrative time cost that can rapidly increase operational costs.
Cryptrain provides blockchain businesses and enterprises with a highly streamlined, automated blockchain developer hiring process. Working with Cryptrain, it’s possible to gain access to a global talent pool of highly experienced and verified blockchain developer experts with proven experience within the blockchain sector.
Cryptrain’s AI-powered screening technology uses artificial intelligence to analyze the code and previous work of blockchain developers, scoring their expertise and assigning to them a proficiency level in order to assign candidates that meet your specific requirements to your role.
Further interview, reference verification, and soft skill screening practices ensure that potential blockchain developer candidates provide your business with tangible value, minimizing the time and cost associated with finding the best possible blockchain developer for your business or blockchain enterprise.
Contact Cryptrain today for a no-obligation, zero-cost discussion on how we can streamline your hiring process and help you find the best blockchain developer to create your vision.
