We need a more efficient job market for the ecosystem

Ecosystem
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Demand

The number of roles we need to fill in the ecosystem is growing.

Some examples:

  • PCF Directors: The 3 community spots have not been filled since inception
  • Bounties
    • The same ~20 people are always asked to curate bounties
    • Bounty operatives in numerous bounties would help a lot
  • Ambassador Fellowship: Lots of ideas for useful jobs to do
  • Numerous “gigs”: We need Block Explorers, Tax Tools, better developer support, better docs, more evangelism, more regional marketing representation etc…

These roles are obvious to ecosystem insiders, but not the casual community member or person looking for a job. They are non-traditional jobs, which prevents them from being properly reflected in traditional talent agencies and job boards.

Supply

On the other hand, I am certain there is an overflow of talent in the community, of people going through PBA, hackathons etc, that are looking for non-technical, non-founder jobs and they don’t know there to look or how to apply.

So we have supply, we have demand, but the two don’t connect.

Conclusion: We need a more efficient job market for the ecosystem.

Current solutions

There is the “official” Polkadot Jobs board, but it is only listing traditional jobs. The W3F has also contracted IPTS to help with talent, but again, this is for traditional roles.

I hear that Pala Labs is also working on a jobs board.

However, I believe the current problem is not coming from a “we miss the right tools” angle, but rather “we haven’t set up the right social process to connect supply and demand”

Ideally, we would have an “HR Lead Polkadot Ecosystem”. I think finding such a person would help us immensely. However, until we have that person, we should not rest.

I think finding competent people to help projects in Polkadot succeed is one of our biggest long-term bottlenecks right now.

Near-term solution

To attack this project in the near-term, I have decided to dedicate half my time for the next 2-3 months to manually match supply and demand in the ecosystem. I also do this selfishly because it is my biggest blocker right now to bring the Polkadot Growth Strategy into execution.

I will execute on the following tasks:

  • Create a jobs board
  • Create a people board
  • Match jobs and people

Some first details:

  • Fill the jobs board
  • Fill the people board
    • advertise the people board to gather applications from people including their resumes and skillsets
  • Match jobs and people
    • interview the most promising candidates to fill details on their profile
    • suggest them to teams
    • help promising candidates that need to go through OpenGov to navigate the process

Current Status

I have create the OpenJobs Board. It is not beautiful, but it does the job. It includes one table of current Job Openings and one table for People. I will now get to work filling those tables.

How you can get involved

  • If you are working in the eco and need to get a role filled, please fill out this form: Post a Job
  • If you are looking for a job, please fill out this form: Post your Profile - NOTE: The data will be public!
  • If you can help in any other way or want to sync, please reach out on Telegram @alice_und_bob or book a call with me
  • I am not an HR person, so I will be continuously be looking for a real HR person to take over this role from me. If you are that person, please reach out :slight_smile:

I will be posting updates as this situation develops.

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This is great @alice_und_bob thanks ! Yeah its weird how the ecosystem is always in shortage of talents but talents cant find any job in the ecosystem… hopefully this can link the two !

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I think this would be a great mini Dapp. The onboarding process is simple: users sign up and pick their skills from a set list. When a job that matches their skill set is posted, they receive a notification. Kinda a database of polkadot talent

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I had the pleasure of speaking with @alice_und_bob last week regarding this, the growth strategy, and some potential steps I can take to contribute to the ecosystem. I threw my name on the board and am making a public call to anyone seeing this now:

I’m open to contribute some of my time to help the ecosystem grow. I’m a process and automation engineer with over 15 years of experience. I’m not looking for a paycheck. If you or your team could use any help, reach out to me or someone on the Job board. I don’t care if you want me fetching coffee. My email and LinkedIn are posted. Let’s schedule a call.

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Update 2025-05-29

First insights

  • hiring is not as easy anymore as in 2021. Many more projects available. Projects need to show they care for their contributors.
  • there is a knowledge gap how to rise from community member to paid contributor
  • value professionalism
    • industry standard pay rates and job reliability are an issue.
    • just requiring people to “do it for the mission/tech” without considering that other ecos also offer that and treat their people better is flawed. “missionaries vs. mercenaries” is too flat thinking. We can have missionaries and pay them the proper amounts.
    • we should consider industry averages when paying jobs and not significantly over/underpay. Both over- and underpayment are significant demotivating factors.
    • Job safety is relevant in OpenGov. If people deliver what they are asked but don’t have job safety because OpenGov might change its mind in 3 months it is a negative signal for qualified people.
  • traditional vs. non-traditional jobs - jobs especially within OpenGov/Bounties/Collectives etc are non-traditional jobs and we haven’t yet established the culture/values/behaviors to properly support OpenGov contributors. We also haven’t yet figured out how to advertise open positions, etc; or even make known the work that is available for gig workers/freelancers/guilds/professional teams looking to contribute.
  • lots of BD people would like to see a proper BD structure come together to better contribute

What I did so far

  • OpenJobs Board
    • had 28 self-submissions for fields like Community/Content/Marketing, Technology, Analysts, BD, HR
    • preparing to hire role “Talent Manager” to support the work, had discussions with W3F HR, Anaelle, @strindbergman to refine it
  • hosted a Twitter space on the topic
  • reached out to bounties to learn their role needs
    • bounties reached: PAL, Marketing, DeFi infra, Paseo, Games, Meetups
    • currently no need: PAL, Paseo
    • these bounties need roles: Marketing, Games, possibly Meetups
    • started getting into rough role descriptions with @Juba.K & @angie. Will keep moving forward to go into a call for applications stage (keep in mind that these are preliminary discussions)
  • had calls with ecosystems agents that work in HR(-adjacent) fields:
    • @Lucy / Ambassador Fellowship
      • there is work ongoing in the Ambassador Fellowship to create a job marketplace.
      • also discussed the need for regional representation. planned Phase 2 will involve adding a map and strengthening regional teams
    • @anaelleltd - Anaelle maintains an Polkadot OpenGov HR Notion board with info on bounties, DevRel here
    • W3F HR team - very open to consult/support on HR matters
  • had two screening calls with potential OpenGov contributors

What I will do next

  • reaching out to more bounties/teams
  • develop role descriptions that are needed and go into hiring
  • prapare a proposal for an HR Bounty or similar structure to hire a Talent Manger for the eco
  • build long list of people interested to become a bounty curator (curators are an ongoing need)
  • create a talent page to brief interested parties on first steps to find work in the ecosystem
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Hey Tommi! I completely agree — having someone we can rely on to share open roles would be a huge help.

Could this person also help consolidate efforts across the ecosystem?

As you mentioned, multiple bounties and entities are pushing similar initiatives, which leads to duplicated efforts and talent cannibalization.

To me this is exactly a position that would be part of the coordination layer, ensuring information is not siloed and our resources are spent the best way

–

We have actually started a UX talent pool page with the idea of sharing it with whoever ends up leading this effort ecosystem-wide. Feel free to duplicate the content :slight_smile:

Also, I was pointed to this team: https://x.com/Fw3_xyz — maybe they could be looped in too? I haven’t talked to them yet or checked their legitimacy, but might be worth a look.

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Didn’t know another team was working on a freelance plateforme, I just started making a demo website for people to put their info into (akin to the talent pool made by you or Tommi) and was thinking on how to expand it later on to add a job board, a réputation system with signatures from peers for work done etc…).

I would love to be a part of this tho since I feel like the hiring experience in this ecosystem is horrible. Will get in contact with Tommi on this to see where I can help.

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feel free to DM or reach out on TG @alice_und_bob

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Hi Alex, glad to your team is working on Ux talent pool page. I am part of the team building freelance web3 which you mentioned earlier. Probably when you have time, we could have a chat.
@Vi_cdan on X and @Vicdan0001 on TG

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Building on @alice_und_bob excellent analysis of our ecosystem’s job market inefficiencies, I want to highlight some specific pain points that are creating a hostile environment for new talent, particularly PBA graduates.

The Paradox We’re Facing

We have a clear supply and demand mismatch:

  • Supply: PBA produces talented developers eager to contribute to the ecosystem
  • Demand: Protocols and DAOs consistently report difficulty finding qualified talent/We have many projects that need to be done to improve the UX of polkadot
  • Reality: Most PBA graduates struggle to find meaningful employment in the ecosystem

Where the System Breaks Down

1. The SDK Contribution Trap

After graduation, many developers follow a predictable but broken path:

  1. Apply for jobs (and get rejected because they dont have experience…)
  2. Attempt to contribute to Polkadot SDK hoping to catch Parity’s attention
  3. Spend dozens of hours on “good first issues” that are anything but
  4. Get lost in the massive codebase without proper guidance
  5. Struggle to find coherent tasks within their area of interest (XCM, pallets, runtime, etc.)
  6. Eventually give up or burn out

The reality is that maintainers are too busy to properly onboard external contributors, and the SDK’s complexity makes meaningful contributions nearly impossible without dedicated mentorship.

2. Cultural Hostility Toward Job Seekers

Our ecosystem seems designed to welcome product builders and founders, but appears hostile to those seeking employment. This creates a culture where:

  • Job opportunities are hidden or informal
  • Networking becomes more important than skill
  • Traditional career paths don’t exist
  • New talent feels unwelcome

3. Information Fragmentation

Critical information is scattered across:

  • Dozens of different websites
  • Various Notion pages
  • Discord channels
  • Telegram groups
  • Individual project documentation

New community members have no clear roadmap for:

  • Where to find opportunities
  • Who to contact about what
  • How to navigate the ecosystem effectively

I believe fixing our talent pipeline is crucial for ecosystem growth. We’re currently wasting the potential of skilled developers who want to contribute but can’t find their way in.

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I recommend you guys contact Tommi directly :slight_smile:

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And that is a brilliant analysis! If I may, I would add a couple of ideas to that:

4. Grant programme bottlenecks and misalignment
Grants are positioned as the way to fund new work, but in practice:

  • The application process is difficult for individuals or early-career devs
  • The system favours full projects over incremental or educational contributions

5. Lack of mentorship and intermediate learning paths
There’s a yawning gap between “beginner tutorial” and “hireable contributor”:

  • No active mentorship networks or structured on-boarding cohorts
  • Few intermediate resources to help bridge the gap from PBA to production-level code
  • Devs who don’t already know Rust, Substrate internals, or blockchain concepts fall through the cracks

We’re wasting a huge amount of potential from developers who are eager, talented, and ideologically aligned with Polkadot’s vision, but can’t find a foothold. If we want to scale the ecosystem beyond its early adopters, fixing this talent pipeline as @alice_und_bob explains is indeed urgent.

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I started at Parity less than five months ago and recently attended PBA6 in March. We had 50 students connect with Parity recruiters on-site in Lucerne, and my team has already hired 3 PBA graduates, with more expected to join.

From my perspective, the current situation feels pretty good, and I wouldn’t describe it as a hostile environment for new talent, especially PBA graduates. It’s possible that things were different in previous months, or perhaps there were fewer open positions.

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Yeah my wording my be a bit off here. What i wanted to say is that with PBA you have … 200 ish person on each cohort ? 2 Cohorts a year + PBA-X. Thats a lot of talents. But Parity can only recruit so much. You most likely got recruited because you have some specific skillset that matched parity’s needs, the vast majority of people are not in this case.

In term of “normal salaryman” type jobs there arent that many in the ecosystem compared to the inflow of devs (which PBA does a wonderfull job at). So you end up with two options :

  • create something (entrepreneurial style)
  • find a gig

The first one is awesome and the ecosystem pushes this and the treasury usually pays for it

The second one is harder because of how decentralized the information in the ecosystem is.
I hear everyone say “there is a lot of work in polkadot” “we need xyz tool”, but there isnt a central place where you can know what the community needs. So unless you are an insider or have a big network you have a low chance of finding work that way.

TLDR: finding job hard unless you get involved deep into the ecosystem/opengov/DAOs. Need centralisation of information in the ecosystem

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I came across this and wanted to share some thoughts because it highlights problem I see across most crypto ecosystems, not just Polkadot. My background is in talent and ops, mostly in startups/scale-ups. From what I’ve seen in crypto, it’s not just about the tools or job boards. It’s the social processes that connect relevant talent with orgs, which this thread touches on well.

I think junior and intermediate candidates struggle more in interviews than they do in Web2, I think that’s mostly because there’s no shared understanding of core competencies across any ecosystem. We don’t really have a competency north star for a lot of roles. Candidates struggle to understand the skills they need to develop, they get lost after their first or second role. So many candidate return to Web2 because of this problem. It’s clearer for technical roles, but things are still pretty undefined for non-tech positions like sales or marketing. I think this is one of the main reasons the global crypto talent pool isn’t scaling as much as it could.

An HR Ecosystem Lead would make a huge impact. Crypto’s pretty confusing to break into professionally, even just knowing to get on Telegram or follow the right accounts on CT isn’t obvious. Most people end up relying on personal networks, which isn’t scalable or fair to newcomers.

I see this as the next important step in maturing the people side of crypto. Crypto needs clear processes, strong ecosystem onboarding, and stronger career pathways.
Would love to bring visibility to this and support in any way, this overlaps with a lot of the work our team is doing in general. Happy to contribute or support in any way to drive this forward!

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