Web3 is quite technical, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need soft skills such as communication, a knack for community building and creativity.
If you love technology for its own sake and you have an inquiring mind, you should think about a Web3 career. It is one of the most talked about areas in tech at the moment, generating quite the fuss among the trendy tech entrepreneur types.
That’s not to say Web3 is a flash in the pan, either. It is an evolving discipline, so naturally it is exciting for investors – and the noisy ones like to preach loudly about its benefits. Whether you don’t mind the hype machine or you’d rather ignore it and focus on your own relationship with Web3, is up to you. But if you want to look into working in the scene, you’ll need to make sure you have the right skillset.
In 2022, we took a look at some of the hard, or technical, skills required for Web3 workers. 10 ones to work on are: development, JavaScript, marketing, blockchain, finance, sales, analysis, operations, front-end development and security.
If you want an even more up-to-date version, Medium blogger The Web3 Therapist has published a list of the most in-demand Web3 skills for 2024.
They have not changed a huge amount since 2022, but notable additions in The Web3 Therapist’s more recent list included technical writing, graphic design, UX and UI design, product management, project management and smart contracting.
Soft skills like social media and community development are important for the growth of Web3 to continue, too. Let’s take a look at why they are important and also what skills you need to possess.
Communication
Technical writing, explaining complicated technical terms, cutting through sales jargon. Those are all practical examples of the kind of communication skills you’ll need for a career in Web3.
Not everyone knows what Web3 is or what its potential is. Give them a waffly sales pitch and they might laugh at you or stare agape at you. You have to be able to explain to people what it is and what they can do with it.
Community-building
Community-building is its own very separate thing from communication – although you do really need communication to be an effective community builder.
Building community is important for a niche, but growing movement like Web3. You have to have the passion and the connections to be able to spread the word. If you have a product that you want to show the world, you have to know whose eyes to attract to it so you can grow a customer base and generate investor interest.
Even if you don’t have a product, being a good community-builder helps. You might get employed by Web3 companies that need the right people to know about their product. Hard skills like digital marketing are an asset in community-building, so if you have these but not development skills, you can still be a very valued employee to a Web3 business that wants to grow its customer base.
For a great example of how community-building knowledge can help you in a Web3 career, check out our interview with Dasha Kova and Jamie Schuppert. The duo told us how they were able to make the move from marketing, comms and tech-adjacent industries to working full-time for Web3 start-up Niche.
Visionary thinking
This last one is important for all deep techies working in digital transformation. You could say visionary thinking is like emotional intelligence in that it incorporates things like active listening and being able to pick up on ideas people have and run with them.
But it also means having a natural inquisitiveness and a hunger for knowledge. You’re not just following trends as a visionary, you’re setting them. Not everyone has that quality, but many of the best entrepreneurs and technologists have it. The jury is out on whether a visionary mindset can be acquired, but all futurists have to start somewhere so following trends might not be the worst place to begin. Just be sure to keep track of your own unique ideas too.
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