A premise about my work experience
I have been working as a Software Engineer for over 8 years.
In my career I have worked in these sectors and for these amounts of time:
- Embedded systems on Passenger Information Systems and Access Control Systems: 4 Years, mostly C/C++; some python and some Rust
- Backend development on web services for an insurtech company: 2 Years, 90% Rust, 10% Elixir
- Web3 development on Internet Computer: 2 Years, 100% Rust
- Backend development on company for a website for puppies: 1 Year 100% PHP unfortunately
- Backend development on Solana: 1 Year, 100% Rust
- Not to mention the 5+ years of open source contributions to Rust projects, and my blog where I write about Rust and Web3.
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So recently I started to apply for jobs again due to my the end of my contract at Bitfinity; and during the process I noticed something weird.
I was applying to a lot of Rust jobs, and while I was getting a lot of replies, especially from web3 companies, I was also getting totally ignored from many important companies in the Rust ecosystem.
My Rust experience is very solid, with over 5 years of experience at work, many open source contributions and a tech blog with a lot of articles featured on this-week-in-rust and I was fully complying with the requirements of the job description.
But, I got no reply, not even a first interview to know more about me; while other people I know with much less experience than me were getting replies from the same companies.
I admit I was quite frustrated, and I started to think about the reasons why this was happening.
I thought maybe it's the age gap, or maybe the fact that I don't have a degree; but there was also another suspect I had in mind: my experience in web3 jobs; I just needed a proof.
The Black List
If you're in Rust groups, from time to time you will see a batch of positions for Rust Jobs called "RUST OPPORTUNITIES (No Blockchain) | $Month $Year" or something similar.
The fact it specifies it's a batch of jobs not related to blockchain is related to the fact that many people in the Rust community want to find a job in Rust, but not in the web3 space. It's totally fine for me, it's a personal choice; like I would never work for a company that manifactures weapons or drugs, but I don't care if you do it; it's your life and your choice.
What's the issue then? Well, I've decided to contact the recruiter which was posting these jobs saying I was interested in a couple of them, and I asked him if he could setup an interview with me. Resume was attached.
I received a reply several days later, and the recruiter told me so:
Sadly these companies don't really consider a crossover of web3 experience here.
Wait, what? I have 5 years of experience in Rust, my resume covers a wide range of experience in many sectors and I have a lot of open source contributions; and the only thing that matters is that I have web3 experience? I was pissed off.
I actually answered the recruiter saying that it's a shame that companies are not considering my experience in Rust because of the web3 experience, and please remove me from the list of candidates that receive these job offers.
And you may think it was my fault or a single case, but again he continued after my reply:
Completely understand - issue with us is that everyone we sent like that just gets rejected with the same feedback.
And I can tell you with 99% certainty that there are also many other well known companies in the Rust ecosystem that are doing the same thing. And some of them promote inclusion and diversity, but they are not including web3 developers in their hiring process (lol).
Yes - It is Discrimination
It's a strong claim, but I think it's true.
And I'm not only referring to companies, I'm also referring to all the people I've met in the Rust community that are against web3 and blockchain.
I want to be clear: everybody has their ethic and moral values, and everybody is 100% free of choosing what to do with their life and their career.
BUT: I've been several times at Rust conferences, and many people I've met there, as soon as they asked me "What do you do?" and I answered for instance "You know, many things, at the moment I'm mostly on some projects on the Internet Computer blockchain" they immediately started to look at me like I was a leper, and they started to avoid me like I was the plague.
I want to be clear: YES, there are many scams in the web3 space, I've covered this topic in my blog many times, and I think it's a shame that people are losing their money because of these scams; but there are also solid projects as well, and even if you may think they are useless or not worth it, it's okay, but I'VE NEVER SCAMMED ANYONE, and I don't think it's fair to be treated like a scammer just because I work in the web3 space.
Also, to be honest, I've worked in other industries where companies were doing much more borderline stuff than web3 companies.
So to wrap up, there's nothing wrong in working in web3, as long as you are not scamming people; you're not supposed to strongly believe in what you're building, sometimes it's just extremely fun and you learn a lot; and usually these companies pay much better than the average company in the Rust ecosystem; so I don't give a damn honestly.
Every sector teaches you something
From my personal experience, that as you can see is quite varied, I can say that every sector I've worked in has taught me something.
There's literally something that you can learn only if you've worked in that sector, and web3 in particular made me particularly aware of the importance of security, solidity of the infrastructure and the importance of implementing efficient algorithms.
You know, literally in web3 applications your application usually costs money to run, and if you don't optimize your code, you will end up paying a lot of money for nothing; and this is something that I think is very important in every sector.
The attention developers put in the code they write in web3 is much higher than in other sectors, and I think this is something that should be taken into account when hiring a developer.
Web3 devs are brilliant
That's a personal claim, but on average, web3 is one of those sectors where the average developer is brilliant.
I'm not saying it's the only one, but for sure the average developer in web3 is much more brilliant than the average developer in other sectors.
The hire standards are actually extremely high, in some companies in particular, you need to pass even 6 rounds of interviews, long technical projects and you are quite often required to have a very solid knowledge of crpytography and security.
Conclusion
I think it's a shame that many companies in the Rust ecosystem are not considering web3 developers for their hiring process.
Also I want to invite developers to not be afraid of working in web3, and to not be ashamed of it.
I think it's a great opportunity to learn a lot, and to work with brilliant people; even if 99% of the projects are going to be trashed in a couple of years (but isn't it the fate of most of the companies as well?), you will learn a lot from them, and trust me, there are really some gems, in particular in the cryptography and security space; just give a look at FHE and ZK projects, they are really brilliant and they are going to change the world.
And finally, this is quite strong, but I invite Rust communities to stop posting that batch, unless there is a clear statement that there is no discrimination against any kind of past job experience.