The Web 3 Job Fair: Live Together, Die Alone.

Welcome to the Encode Club Job Fair!!! where dreams come true!

Last Friday 14th of April, the Encode Club Job Fair took place at gather.town, the Multiverse platform for offices, fairs and events.

Encode Club promised that there would be more than 40 companies and more than 200 job offers, opportunity to talk to the founders or representatives of the companies, discuss with other colleagues, talks on several different panels, … to many promises. Oh, and all for free. Ok, to check it out, I went to the Fair and this was my experience.

Preliminary Information

No doubt a big event for Encode Club and it shows. We received a lot of information during the week in order to be prepared for the fair:

• They informed us about the platform, gather.town and the Fair.
• They sent us the invitation to add to our calendars in advance, with the schedule.
• They were tweeting all week about the companies: Open Zeppelin, Hexens, Binance, Nefture, Automata, Gelato, …
• They reported about panels discussions and speakers.
• They told about the job offers and advised to have the CVs ready.
• Finally, the day before, they sent us the Attendee’s Guide with all the information about the event and a guide to interact with companies and colleagues.

So far, a great job for the Encode team.

Gather.town

Gather.town was the platform chosen by Encode Club to create this virtual fair. In my case, it was the first time I used the platform and I have to say that it passed the test with flying colours. A bit of chaos at the beginning, we were more than 500 people, but the platform worked smoothly, I could talk to a lot of people without problems, the conferences were great…

Also the design of the Fair was very successful, easy to move our avatars around the Fair, very well built stage for the conferences, and even a garden!

At first I was very sceptical about Gather, but now I am really impressed. This platform is ideal for fairs or one-day events.

Pannel 1: Getting hired in web3: Dos and don’ts of applying and interviewing

Speakers: Marcelo Grundig (OpenZeppelin) Sharath Leelakrishnan (Polybase) and Ben Clark (Stakefish). Moderator: Johannah Dalangin (Encode)

The first panel was on how to get hired in web3 and the speakers discussed what they look for and what impresses them during job interviews.

Common to all was the idea of “sense of purpose”. You’re not just here because you’ve heard there’s an amazing salary, because it’s just another job… it is because you have a strong sense of interest, you really believe in web3 and the technology and you’ll do whatever it takes to work in this sector. You understand the underlying technology and the impact and benefits of it.

For example, Sharath spoke about “The value proposition document”: How you are valuable to the project and how the project is valuable to you.

Marcelo advised on being relevant in the space, creating content or being a prominent auditor on platforms such as code4arena.

Ben shared his experience with CVs and portfolios and said that a portfolio should be easy to read, easy to follow.

All agreed on the importance of communication skills in an environment that is born remote.

Personal quote: Nobody is going to pay you a big salary for your pretty face. Go tech-savvy, review the role that best suits your skills and understand the product of the company you are talking to, the problem it solves, what the goal is and how you can improve it from the start.

Panel 2: Founders Forum: Insights and inspiration from successful entrepreneurs

Speakers: Jiahao Sun (FLock.io), Jae Chung (Manifold) and Ian Gerstgrasser (DERA). Moderator: Vanessa Lošić (Encode).

Very different from the previous one, the speakers share their experience of being an entrepreneur in a Startup, the ups (a few) and downs (oh, boy) of the day-to-day life of Startup CEOs and CTOs.

One thing they all share is not to focus on the last sprint and short-term success. You have to have very well defined deliverables and think long term. We are pioneers in a new world and it’s all about keeping pounding all the time.

Ian talked about how difficult it is to focus on a single task because there are always new and bright ideas in the environment but, to be successful, you have to finish the task before jumping to the next one.

Jae reflected on building culture, getting to know each member of the team, no matter if it’s an engineer, a programmer, a trader,…always bring in people who fit with the culture of the company.

Jiahao discusses some of the complications with the team, how to retain talented people, and about the difficult decisions. He is always looking for people who are obsessed with the profession.

Personal quote: Entrepreneurs are different people. You might get rich, you might lose 3 years of your life, but you always have your eyes on the goal like a maniac.

Pannel 3: Navigating Career Transitions: Tips and strategies for successfully changing career paths

Speakers: La Pyae Thit (SettleMint) Alex (Bware) Bawar Hamad (Scroll) Magdalena Mikoda (Parity). Moderator: Angela Sun (Encode).

The last panel was a song of hope. Web 3 is a baby and all companies will sooner or later land in the ecosystem, then, there will be offers for every profile and interest. In a few years, everyone may want to move to web3 but, look, the jobs are filled by those who attended the Encode Job Fair!

A curious note from Magdalena was that, by the time she arrived at the company, the whole recruitment process, and all of HR, was in chaos. It’s the price of being such a new technology.

In this panel, everyone agreed on the world of opportunities out there and, in this case, it was Angela from Encode who pointed out that you have to be sure of what your passion is and what kind of projects you want to be involved in.

La Pyae told us that, in the beginning, he took notes of everything, great, the same as me, mate!

Personal quote: The sky is the limit in web3, but don’t try to do everything. Focus on one function, one business or one service and work as if you were obsessed.

Companies Space:

Just, absolutely great.

The first thing I noticed was that it was very well organised, you could understand the map at a quick look. It was quite easy to move between the company booths and chat with company representatives or other colleagues.

The stands had a screen where you can see the job offers and a mailbox to leave your CV. Also, as we already knew which companies were attending, we had time before the fair to visit their websites, understand the company, the services and meet the people. This way you can approach the stand knowing exactly what topic you want to talk to each company representative about.

And wow, they were amazing. I can’t say enough about how friendly, honest and communicative these representatives were. That’s the real superpower of web3, people are eager to work and bring talent to the ecosystem. They are here because they love what they do.

Just like you.

And me :)

Final thoughts: Live Together, Die Alone.

At a web3 fair you can feel the good vibes of the ecosystem, even at this one, being remote. Here people are happy to work and share. Live together die alone. Web3 will belong to everyone or it won’t exist at all. We all have taken the risk of betting on a technology that we have pioneered and the sense of camaraderie, of sharing something is at the highest level.
Also, in other spaces, like youtube, company blogs, etc… you can find multiple resources to learn for free (like in Encode Club by the way) so if you want to, you can.

I thought that, in this fair, everything would be more chaotic but, after it, I think that all the decisions that Encode Club has taken to make it happen have been a success. The space, the speakers, the distribution of the companies, the ease of finding job opportunities...

I hope Encode Club or another company repeats the experience because it was great, for my part, I wish for everyone to find their way in the ecosystem.

You can contact the author of this article on twitter, as @azdraft_, or by email, at aitor.zaldua@draftdigital.org.