When a programmer switches to Web3, how can he judge whether the job is reliable and how can he avoid pitfalls?

The Web3 industry is indeed providing another career path. However, for you, is it a window to the wind or a door to unknown risks?

Author: Lawyer Shao Shiwei

In the past year, we have received a lot of consultation from professionals in traditional fields such as financial technology, payment industry, and data services.

Among them, there are back-end developers who are deeply involved in front-line coding, as well as senior engineers who coordinate architectural design; there are product managers who promote business implementation, as well as technical leaders who are responsible for system iteration.

Most of them have accumulated years of experience in their original fields, but at a certain stage in their career development, they began to become interested in "Web3", a once distant new industry - not out of enthusiasm, nor blindly following the trend, but because the existing track is gradually narrowing, and Web3 seems to provide another imagination space.

I Author: Lawyer Shao Shiwei

Transforming to Web3 is becoming the choice of more and more young people

In the past two years, Web3 has gradually moved from an "industry concept" to a "real job demand." As the number of recruitments has increased, a clearer talent profile and more concrete employment needs have also emerged.

On the one hand, the advancement of policies and industries is accelerating. Hong Kong continues to issue virtual asset service provider (VASP) licenses to accelerate the compliance of virtual assets; leading companies such as Alibaba and JD.com have successively tried new tracks such as stablecoins and RWA (real world assets); more and more domestic technical teams choose to "go overseas" and set up Web3 project entities in Singapore, Dubai and other places to connect with global markets and financing resources. These changes have released a large number of recruitment opportunities for technical positions, product positions, compliance positions, and marketing positions in the Web3 industry, and have also turned "transforming to Web3" from a concept into action.

On the other hand, in traditional industries such as third-party payment, financial technology, and data services, a group of qualified and experienced professionals are facing a "career transformation window." Some people feel the uncertainty brought about by technology iteration and platform strategy adjustments; some people gradually lose enthusiasm for repetitive product forms and business models; and some people are thinking about how to strike a balance between income growth, lifestyle, and technology accumulation.

"Decentralization", "remote work", "currency-based income", "high degree of freedom"... These expressions that seemed niche in the past are now beginning to appear in the browsing records of more programmers, developers, and product managers.

The Web3 industry is indeed providing another career path. However, for you, is it a window to the wind or a door to unknown risks?

Should you take the product manager position with a monthly salary of 90,000 yuan?

Some time ago, a friend who was planning to transform to Web3 came to me and asked me to help him analyze an opportunity.

He is currently working as a product manager at a medium-sized payment company in Hangzhou, with an annual salary of about 500,000 yuan, and has been working for nearly ten years. In the past few years, he has been mainly responsible for the product design of the payment link and clearing platform, connecting with channels such as WeChat Pay, UnionPay, and foreign card acquiring, and has also worked on some industry solutions, such as designing foreign card settlement interfaces for cross-border e-commerce platforms and providing aggregated cashier solutions for chain restaurants.

"To be honest, the current business is very stable," he said. "In the past two years, our team has basically been working on rule configuration, system reconstruction, clearing and settlement reconciliation process, or upgrading the cash register components of several old systems. It has been a long time since we had the opportunity to build a payment chain from 0 to 1."

Most of my colleagues are stuck at the same level. They have enough experience and are not bad in ability, but there is no room for further advancement. The company itself is also shrinking, and there are fewer and fewer internal innovation projects.

In this context, he received a headhunting invitation from a Web3 exchange. The position was "Transaction Product Manager", with a monthly salary of 90,000 yuan, settlement in U, the platform was located in Singapore, the work mode was remote office, and the collaboration method was mainly through TG, Slack and Google Docs.

According to the interview feedback, the main responsibilities of this position are to lead the product design of the matching engine, order management system, clearing rules, and transaction risk control logic. From the language stack to the underlying structure, they are very similar to the systems he has worked on before, still using Go and Java.

"It does sound delicious," he said after a moment's hesitation, "but I still feel a little uneasy."

“Is this kind of platform legal in the country?”

"I'm in Hangzhou, but my company is overseas. Will I be at risk if something goes wrong?"

Workplace Anxiety in All Industries

Like the product manager mentioned above, in the past two years, we have come into contact with many professionals from backgrounds such as financial technology, payment systems, Internet brokerages, and bank IT.

Their resumes are not bad: they have worked in large systems for many years, have stable technical and product capabilities, and are accustomed to multi-department collaboration, cross-border docking, and process stress testing. However, in the current industry cycle, many people have begun to feel a kind of "structural stagnation."

Projects tend to be repetitive and work content is gradually standardized; promotion paths are restricted and senior management mobility is extremely low; organizations begin to shift from expansion to contraction, and performance evaluations become increasingly conservative... On one hand, there is the accumulated experience and capabilities, and on the other is the stagnant reality. Many people are unwilling to continue to roll back, but cannot find a fulcrum to break out.

Web3 was initially just an unfamiliar word, but it gradually appeared on recruitment platforms, in WeChat Moments, and on the phone with headhunters.

Some people started searching for "careers for programmers" after a performance talk, some saw a remote job recruitment post and clicked on the keyword "Web3 job search" for the first time, and some people started to understand what this industry is doing after a friend told them "your background is a good match."

But their starting points are not the same.

Some people are just over 30 and start to worry about the stability of mid-level positions; some are tired of the process-oriented work pace and hope to have more say and participation; and some are eager for a new lifestyle brought by free, remote and global projects.

For independent developers, the motivation for such transformation is more straightforward: there are many projects in the Web3 field, new technology options, and clear task boundaries. They can also participate in multiple collaborations at the same time and exchange code quality for U or Token - this is almost unimaginable freedom in traditional industries.

But before really starting to "transform to Web3", almost everyone will be stuck on several key issues:

“How can I enter the market without any industry experience?”

“Are currency-based salaries and remote collaboration really the way I want to work?”

“Can we wait a few more years for this industry, or is now the best opportunity?”

They are not sure and want to hear what people who know the industry better think.

What issues need to be considered before transformation?

For example, programmers need to answer several basic questions before truly entering Web3:

• Are my past technical skills transferable?
• Do you need to supplement the basic skills of on-chain development, such as Solidity, wallet interaction, and contract deployment?
• All official documents are in English. Are my language skills sufficient?
• The project is located overseas, and the salary is settled in U or Token. How can I receive the payment safely? Will it touch the domestic regulatory red line?

In fact, many people have already considered these issues when making career choices. But the real hidden things are those legal risks that you are not aware of.

I once represented a case of “opening a casino”. The client was a backend development engineer who worked as a core technical position in a Web3 trading platform and had just been promoted to a technical management position before the incident.

When I met him in the detention center, he said to me: "Our platform is located overseas, and the server is also overseas. We don't target users in mainland China. I shouldn't be responsible, right?"

I asked him: "Have you done KYC? Can you see user information in the backend?"

He said: "You can only see the IP address from which the user logged in, nothing else."

I asked again: "What if the user logs in using VPN?"

He was stunned for a moment: "This cannot be identified (whether it is a mainland Chinese user)."

I continued to ask him if he understood the platform's promotional methods, and he replied: "We have basically no communication between technology and operations, so I'm not very clear."

Here lies the problem——

• He did not realize that even if the platform was overseas, as long as he worked in China and had access to backend data, it could fall within the "jurisdiction" of domestic justice.
• He did not analyze the differences between the platform's trading logic and the mainstream contract structure, and whether it posed a high risk;
• He did not understand the company's external publicity strategy, nor did he pay attention to the compliance boundaries of the system he developed.
• Even as a developer who can see user login data, he did not realize what the lack of a KYC mechanism might mean.
• Moreover, as the technical director, he was not clear whether the platform had truly implemented anti-money laundering mechanisms and real-name verification.

This programmer, who had a background in a prestigious university and worked for a large company, originally hoped to achieve a career transition through Web3. However, due to his lack of compliance awareness, he was involved in a criminal case while in a technical management position, which not only affected his work, but also put him under tremendous pressure from public opinion and family.

Conclusion

The Web3 industry does offer different opportunities: a more flexible way of working and a higher income ceiling. It attracts some developers who are tired of the traditional workplace rhythm, and also inspires the willingness of many product managers, architects, and independent developers who are sensitive to new technologies and new models to make the leap.

But at the same time, the fast pace, unclear rules and blurred boundaries of responsibility are also two sides of the same coin.

Before taking this step, perhaps you could ask yourself:

Am I really ready to face the unknown?

Disclaimer: As a blockchain information platform, the articles published on this site only represent the personal opinions of the author and the guest, and have nothing to do with the position of Web3Caff. The information in the article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice or offer. Please comply with the relevant laws and regulations of your country or region.