Hire top Web3 developers to grow your startup

A guide to hiring web3 developers for your startup in 2023

Web3 is the next wave of innovation on the World Wide Web, powered by blockchain technology. A Blockchain developer designs, builds, and maintains blockchain applications and systems. Learn more about how we're helping web3 companies hire top talent today on Wellfound across web3, cryptocurrency, and blockchain.

‍Are you an engineer looking for a web3 role? Check out our blog post on how to find web3 jobs on Wellfound.‍

Hiring a web3 developer for your startup?

With over 1,500 web3 startups already recruiting on Wellfound, web3 companies are quickly becoming one of the fastest-growing job to hire for on our platform. Explore our hiring guide to finding talented web3 developers, skills to look for, and how to interview potential candidates for your startup.

A web3 developer is a skilled software engineer whose job responsibilities include building and managing the web3 (client-facing) development process. Many engineers may be hired for specific roles within web3 including blockchain engineer, smart contracts engineer, or Solidity engineer.

Since 2012, Wellfound Talent has helped the world’s most up-and-coming startups hire their team. Today, we’re helping companies like Opensea, Foundation, Uniswap, Dapper Labs, and thousands of other web3 companies hire their teams.

Levels and skillsets of web3 developers

What skills to look for when hiring a web3 developer

Blockchain Fundamentals

‍C++, Golang, C#, JavaScript, Solidity, Python, Ruby, and Java are considered the popular programming languages for blockchain development. Find a blockchain engineer with familiarity and understanding of blockchain architecture, smart contracts, cryptography, and data structures (and check out our Blockchain Engineer Hiring Guide for more tips).

Decentralized Applications

‍Decentralized applications (Dapps) are built on top of a blockchain. These applications require front end framework skills including React, Vue, Angular and back end skills in Solidity and Ethereum or Rust and Solana.

Smart Contracts

‍Smart contract functionality in systems plays an important role in the development of blockchain companies and business applications. Network-specific languages include Solidity, Viper, Chaincode, Golang, and others.

Web3 Frameworks

‍Frameworks are tools that provide components aimed to customize and speed up development. Popular frameworks include web3,js, ether,js, Truffle, OpenZeppelin, and Chainlink.

Web2 Programming Languages

‍C++, Golang, C#, JavaScript, Solidity, Python, Ruby, and Java are considered some of the most popular programming languages for blockchain development. HTML and CSS knowledge can also be beneficial for a web3 developer for frontend development work.

Learning on the Go

‍With the ever-changing landscape of web3 and blockchain development, look for a developer willing to learn on the go and be adaptable to change. A good hire will continuously learn and showcase flexibility to adapt to new changes in the industry.

The most popular web3 skills and frameworks

Hiring for a web3 engineering role can be tricky. You’re looking for an engineer with strong web2 programming background including front end and back end programming languages. The candidate also ideally has some experience or projects with web3-related topics including smart contracts, Ethereum fundamentals, blockchain fundamentals and web3 frameworks.

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Recruiting web3 developers on Wellfound

Reach and recruit web3 developers

Companies can always post a web3 engineer job and review applicants on Wellfound for free. When posting a job for web3 engineers, learn how to write a job posting that will attract the right engineering talent. Explore our web3 job board to get inspiration on how other companies currently list their roles for web3 engineer-related roles.

• Add related fields: title, location, skills, and more. Relevant fields help your job post show up in the candidate’s job searches. Include “web3” in the job description or more specific programming you’re hiring for (i.e. Solidity, smart contracts, blockchain).
• Fill out a job posting to describe your company, role, and ideal candidate. All Wellfound job postings have a free-form section to explain more about the company and specific roles. A few suggestions to include are:

1. Company name
2. Title
3. Main responsibilities
4. Programming languages
5. Qualifications for web3 developers
6. Preferred skills for web3 developers

• Set up your company profile. A candidate will usually first click on their company profile to learn more when evaluating a company’s job post. Make sure your company profile is up to date with all sections filled out — candidates rely on this to inform their job search!

Source web3 developers

On Wellfound, you can also find candidates by sourcing for them — meaning, instead of posting a job and waiting for candidates to apply, you can find potential candidates and pitch your opportunity directly to them.

Candidates on Wellfound are specifically interested in joining a startup. With Source, we’ll tell you information including which candidates are actively looking for a job, what skills they have, their ideal salary, and more.

When sourcing for web3 developers on Wellfound, we suggest starting your search with the following:

• Role: Start your search by filtering for those with a current or previous “web3 engineer” or “web3 developer” title. This will filter for candidates with matching titles, to begin with.
• Skills: Add specific languages and technologies you’re looking for experience in. Your search will depend on what technologies your codebase is in.
• Location: Filter for candidates in a specific location or based on remote preferences (whether they’re only open to remote, only open to in-office, or both). If you’re looking for remote developers, you can also search for remote candidates in specific time zones.
• Experience: This is where you can clarify the level of experience you’re looking for. If you’re open to multiple levels, you can always leave this filter open to allow a wider range of candidates to show up.

From there, you’ll see different lists appear based on whether they are passive candidates (open to interviews, but not actively looking), active candidates (actively looking and ready to interview), or curated candidates (ready to interview and have been vetted and recommended by our team).

Web3 developer communities, networks, and meetups

Here’s a list of a few web3 communities you can get in touch with to connect with web3 developer talent:Communities

• DEV Community - Web3
• GitHub - Ethereum

Discord Channels and DAOs

• Web.3 Careers
• Developer DAO
• Learn web3 DAO

Events & Hackathons

• Dev.Events: web3 Developer Conferences

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How to set up a hiring process for web3 developers:

Web3 engineer hiring funnel steps

• Initial Phone Screen: Look out for a candidate's problem-solving skills, excitement for the role, and culture fit in the product and company. Evaluate if the candidate has a Github profile or other online portfolio to showcase website or app experience and past projects.
• Hiring Manager Call: Hiring managers should press further into past web3 experiences, engineering interests and motivations, and type of work style. Focus on the culture fit. Does the candidate have the soft skills needed for the role? Do they have an interest in web3? Are they comfortable in fast-changing ambiguous working environments?
• Technical Interview: There are multiple ways to test a candidate's coding abilities for technical interviews — most commonly, companies will include either a coding test or a project-based exercise.

1. For coding tests, startups have used platforms including TopCoder and CoderPad. Note: coding assessments becoming increasingly outdated, as they can often be limited to only certain styles of work.
2. For web3 developers, the technical interview includes questions about the candidate's understanding of web3 engineering programs and their overall understanding of web3. What is a smart contract? How does blockchain technology work? A hiring manager may also evaluate how the candidate solves problems and ask questions about previous web3 projects.

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Web3 developer interview questions

• What is the difference between Web2 and Web3?
• What is a smart contract?
• What is Ethereum?
• What is the difference between public and private keys?

Explore this GitHub digest of interview questions and answers during the interview process for additional technical interview questions related to web3.

Web3 developer salaries

Determine a competitive salary you can offer web3 candidates by comparing market data for other postings. Explore levels.fyi or web3.career, to understand the ranges of market salaries for web3 roles. Leverage Wellfound's salary tool to review your offer for web3 developers stacks up against other jobs on our platform.

If you can’t meet a competitive salary and still want to hire top engineering talent, double down on the benefits. Are there unique company benefits? Is there equity, stock options, or other compensation you can provide? Discuss with candidates the additional benefits beyond salary during the negotiation and interview process.

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Find web3 developers around the world

Now you know how to determine the type of web3 engineer to hire, how to find web3 developers for your team, and how to set up your hiring process — now you’re ready to start looking 👀 Post your job on Wellfound and start sourcing top front end developers from globally today.