Crypto companies face a dilemma in hiring: should they prioritize talent with crypto-native experience or those with strong learning abilities from traditional tech backgrounds? According to a16z Crypto, both have unique advantages.

Crypto-native professionals can immediately dive into high-risk, time-sensitive projects, especially in areas like smart contract development where precision is critical.

Traditional tech talent brings experience in scalable operations, complex system management, and cross-domain expertise (e.g., fintech, UX), which helps drive crypto products toward mainstream adoption.

The hiring process should evaluate candidates’ motivations, using targeted conversations to gauge their interest and adaptability to the crypto industry, while emphasizing the company’s vision and technological value.

During onboarding, knowledge-sharing sessions, mentorship pairings, and continuous education can help newcomers fill crypto knowledge gaps and integrate quickly.

Innovative compensation structures, such as token-based incentives, can address liquidity constraints in early-stage companies and attract top talent.

Author: Ian Dutra, Craig Naylor (a16z Crypto)

Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

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As the crypto industry’s growth fuels massive demand for talent, crypto founders need to know how to find and recruit the best people—both those native to the crypto world and those with traditional tech experience. However, one of the biggest questions remains: should you hire people with crypto experience or those who can learn quickly? This sparks endless internal debates.

The good news is that the crypto industry isn’t the first to face talent pipeline challenges. This means you can draw on established practices to find the right people with the right skills. This guide aims to help founders and recruiters determine when crypto-native experience is essential, when other types of experience can have the greatest impact, and what challenges and considerations to address during the hiring process.

To simplify: while crypto companies differ from traditional tech companies in some ways, the processes and best practices for finding, hiring, and onboarding talent are similar. You’re building a tech company, not just a “crypto company.” So, be sure to apply those proven best practices to find talent with the right skills.

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You Need Both Crypto-Native and Traditional Talent

A rule of thumb is that crypto-native professionals have one crucial advantage: they can hit the ground running. High-stakes projects are often time-sensitive, and every day counts. Sometimes, native crypto expertise is indispensable. This is especially true for roles involving blockchain technology and its foundational infrastructure—even the most skilled professionals may face a steep learning curve.

Smart contract development is a prime example. These self-executing protocols are coded directly on the blockchain and require precision and an understanding of decentralized logic, which is fundamentally different from traditional programming. A single bug in a smart contract can lead to catastrophic losses, even millions of dollars, making this a high-risk area where knowing the rules is essential.

Bringing talent into an industry with such a steep learning curve can be challenging, as candidates may need time to adapt to the nuances of blockchain technology—decentralization vs. centralization, open-source ethos, etc.—as well as the “crypto mindset,” which encompasses everything from unique cultural terminology to ways of thinking.

However, non-crypto talent can drive the industry forward in many areas, especially as companies scale. For example, traditional professionals with software engineering or operations backgrounds bring diverse skills and rich experience often honed at large tech companies. These professionals are often versatile, capable of navigating internal bureaucracy and obstacles to get things done. This operational flexibility becomes a powerful asset in the multidisciplinary teams common in crypto’s rapid growth.

Experience with scalability is also critical. Traditional candidates have often worked on products used by millions of users and have tackled the challenges that come with success: ensuring systems remain operational under extreme infrastructure loads, optimizing performance at scale, and handling unpredictable demand surges. This experience directly applies to Web3 products as they transition from niche crypto audiences to mainstream markets.

For instance, candidates from fintech may have relevant experience in payment technologies or financial regulations that could benefit your business. If you’re developing infrastructure or consumer applications, there’s a vast pool of talent with years of scaling experience in these areas. Consider where these experiences overlap and assess how to quickly get them up to speed on crypto-specific technologies to build your ideal team.

More broadly, candidates with expertise in design, user experience, scalability, security, and leadership can accelerate innovation in crypto, as these skills are often domain-agnostic and may even make them better suited than those without such experience.

Once you’ve identified the skills and people you need—including whether they truly need to be crypto-native—the next step is to go out and recruit them.

---

Recruiting Top Talent from All Backgrounds

The biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity are two sides of the same coin: you are a crypto company.

For some candidates from traditional backgrounds, the volatility of crypto, recent regulatory uncertainties, industry jargon, and decentralized products may seem too alien or unappealing—or both. But for others, that same unfamiliarity and occasional instability are exciting—not a flaw but a feature. During recruitment conversations, delve into how candidates view the stability and comfort of large companies versus the opportunities and challenges of a fast-growing startup.

Share a challenge your team faced in recent weeks, explain how you addressed it, and emphasize the responsibilities each team member is expected to shoulder given the company’s size and stage. Their reaction may reveal how they would handle similar situations, and at the very least, it will set expectations for what’s required when challenges arise.

Candidates may know little about crypto when first contacted, but natural curiosity and interest in the advantages of decentralization are key. During the hiring process, an important signal is whether their knowledge and engagement deepen over time: Are they doing their own research? Are they asking more specific questions as they learn?

To distinguish between skeptical candidates and those genuinely interested—and to avoid wasting time and resources—understand their motivations early to ensure alignment with your company’s direction. This is a fundamental hiring principle, but it’s worth emphasizing, especially in crypto.

Tailor each hiring conversation to the candidate: What drives them in their current role? What kept them engaged in past roles? These factors will likely play a significant part in their decision this time, too. Start uncovering these answers from the first phone call.

By the end of the process, you want to hire someone who aligns with your company’s vision and is passionate about your product. At the same time, your team should feel excited about the new hire; this will help you gauge whether the candidate is a good fit, regardless of their crypto experience. Let this always be your guide.

Since you’re targeting curious candidates, tailor your pitch to them. Start by explaining the two cultural narratives in crypto: the “computer culture,” which sees blockchain as a tool for building new networks and driving a new computing movement, and the “casino culture,” which focuses on speculation, trading, and gambling. Then, share how this emerging industry offers a unique opportunity to reshape the future of technology, much like the early days of the internet.

A useful thought experiment is to try talking about your product and company without mentioning crypto. What problems does your company solve? What inspired you to start it? Why does it make the world better? This approach helps convey your company’s philosophy and vision without distracting listeners with technical details.

Another good starting point is to simply ask, “What do you know about crypto?” Even if the response is skeptical or negative—based on news stories or casino culture narratives—this opens a dialogue and allows you to address their real concerns: external factors (policy), internal factors (technical complexity), personal factors (risk tolerance), etc. You can acknowledge that many in crypto share some of these doubts and steer the conversation toward the cool technical problems your project is solving.

Not everyone is primarily motivated by money, but you should also be prepared to highlight the financial upside of crypto. Historically, top talent has been reluctant to join early-stage companies for three main reasons: (1) intense work culture, (2) poor work-life balance, and (3) lack of liquidity compensation. Even if you address the first two, the third can still cause you to lose many potential candidates.

Compared to the rare liquidity events like IPOs or acquisitions in Web2, innovations in compensation, such as token-based structures, can offer financial benefits and liquidity for early-stage companies. Be sure to use vesting/token grant plans that align employees with long-term goals, binding them to the company’s success over time. Compensation is a complex topic and obviously top of mind for job seekers, so make sure you’re well-prepared to discuss it.

If you execute these steps well, you’ll have a great chance of attracting top talent from outside the industry to your company. Next, you need to help them understand how they can contribute their best work day to day.

---

Onboarding Considerations

Integrating new talent into a Web3 company requires accelerating their adaptation through education. You’ve already identified each candidate’s knowledge gaps during the interview process. Use this information to design an onboarding experience that fills those gaps as quickly as possible.

For example, new hires may need help moving beyond the technical details of blockchain and decentralized systems to understand the real-world problems they’ll be solving and to build confidence in their roles.

Regular knowledge-sharing sessions, where new employees can engage with more experienced crypto-native team members, foster collaboration and allow everyone to learn from each other’s strengths. Mentorship programs pairing newcomers with seasoned Web3 professionals provide valuable hands-on learning. Even better, you can structure programs so that crypto “unicorns” (those with all the skills, knowledge, and background) pair with new hires, helping them develop into their own crypto unicorns over time.

Upskilling and education are essential and will remain so as the industry evolves. Resources like blockchain-related blogs, podcasts, and educational courses—covering topics such as how to use smart wallets, staking, tokenomics, smart contract design, or basic blockchain concepts—are great starting points for continuous learning. Mentorship from established crypto organizations can offer practical experience, and insights from industry thought leaders through reports (including our own “State of Crypto” report) can provide deep insights.

The key is that whatever your new hires need to excel, your job is to help them learn, find, or access those resources from day one.

Crypto companies face a dilemma in hiring: should they prioritize talent with crypto-native experience or those with strong learning abilities from traditional tech backgrounds? According to a16z Crypto, both have unique advantages.

Crypto-native professionals can immediately dive into high-risk, time-sensitive projects, especially in areas like smart contract development where precision is critical.

Traditional tech talent brings experience in scalable operations, complex system management, and cross-domain expertise (e.g., fintech, UX), which helps drive crypto products toward mainstream adoption.

The hiring process should evaluate candidates’ motivations, using targeted conversations to gauge their interest and adaptability to the crypto industry, while emphasizing the company’s vision and technological value.

During onboarding, knowledge-sharing sessions, mentorship pairings, and continuous education can help newcomers fill crypto knowledge gaps and integrate quickly.

Innovative compensation structures, such as token-based incentives, can address liquidity constraints in early-stage companies and attract top talent.

Author: Ian Dutra, Craig Naylor (a16z Crypto)

Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

---

As the crypto industry’s growth fuels massive demand for talent, crypto founders need to know how to find and recruit the best people—both those native to the crypto world and those with traditional tech experience. However, one of the biggest questions remains: should you hire people with crypto experience or those who can learn quickly? This sparks endless internal debates.

The good news is that the crypto industry isn’t the first to face talent pipeline challenges. This means you can draw on established practices to find the right people with the right skills. This guide aims to help founders and recruiters determine when crypto-native experience is essential, when other types of experience can have the greatest impact, and what challenges and considerations to address during the hiring process.

To simplify: while crypto companies differ from traditional tech companies in some ways, the processes and best practices for finding, hiring, and onboarding talent are similar. You’re building a tech company, not just a “crypto company.” So, be sure to apply those proven best practices to find talent with the right skills.

---

You Need Both Crypto-Native and Traditional Talent

A rule of thumb is that crypto-native professionals have one crucial advantage: they can hit the ground running. High-stakes projects are often time-sensitive, and every day counts. Sometimes, native crypto expertise is indispensable. This is especially true for roles involving blockchain technology and its foundational infrastructure—even the most skilled professionals may face a steep learning curve.

Smart contract development is a prime example. These self-executing protocols are coded directly on the blockchain and require precision and an understanding of decentralized logic, which is fundamentally different from traditional programming. A single bug in a smart contract can lead to catastrophic losses, even millions of dollars, making this a high-risk area where knowing the rules is essential.

Bringing talent into an industry with such a steep learning curve can be challenging, as candidates may need time to adapt to the nuances of blockchain technology—decentralization vs. centralization, open-source ethos, etc.—as well as the “crypto mindset,” which encompasses everything from unique cultural terminology to ways of thinking.

However, non-crypto talent can drive the industry forward in many areas, especially as companies scale. For example, traditional professionals with software engineering or operations backgrounds bring diverse skills and rich experience often honed at large tech companies. These professionals are often versatile, capable of navigating internal bureaucracy and obstacles to get things done. This operational flexibility becomes a powerful asset in the multidisciplinary teams common in crypto’s rapid growth.

Experience with scalability is also critical. Traditional candidates have often worked on products used by millions of users and have tackled the challenges that come with success: ensuring systems remain operational under extreme infrastructure loads, optimizing performance at scale, and handling unpredictable demand surges. This experience directly applies to Web3 products as they transition from niche crypto audiences to mainstream markets.

For instance, candidates from fintech may have relevant experience in payment technologies or financial regulations that could benefit your business. If you’re developing infrastructure or consumer applications, there’s a vast pool of talent with years of scaling experience in these areas. Consider where these experiences overlap and assess how to quickly get them up to speed on crypto-specific technologies to build your ideal team.

More broadly, candidates with expertise in design, user experience, scalability, security, and leadership can accelerate innovation in crypto, as these skills are often domain-agnostic and may even make them better suited than those without such experience.

Once you’ve identified the skills and people you need—including whether they truly need to be crypto-native—the next step is to go out and recruit them.

---

Recruiting Top Talent from All Backgrounds

The biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity are two sides of the same coin: you are a crypto company.

For some candidates from traditional backgrounds, the volatility of crypto, recent regulatory uncertainties, industry jargon, and decentralized products may seem too alien or unappealing—or both. But for others, that same unfamiliarity and occasional instability are exciting—not a flaw but a feature. During recruitment conversations, delve into how candidates view the stability and comfort of large companies versus the opportunities and challenges of a fast-growing startup.

Share a challenge your team faced in recent weeks, explain how you addressed it, and emphasize the responsibilities each team member is expected to shoulder given the company’s size and stage. Their reaction may reveal how they would handle similar situations, and at the very least, it will set expectations for what’s required when challenges arise.

Candidates may know little about crypto when first contacted, but natural curiosity and interest in the advantages of decentralization are key. During the hiring process, an important signal is whether their knowledge and engagement deepen over time: Are they doing their own research? Are they asking more specific questions as they learn?

To distinguish between skeptical candidates and those genuinely interested—and to avoid wasting time and resources—understand their motivations early to ensure alignment with your company’s direction. This is a fundamental hiring principle, but it’s worth emphasizing, especially in crypto.

Tailor each hiring conversation to the candidate: What drives them in their current role? What kept them engaged in past roles? These factors will likely play a significant part in their decision this time, too. Start uncovering these answers from the first phone call.

By the end of the process, you want to hire someone who aligns with your company’s vision and is passionate about your product. At the same time, your team should feel excited about the new hire; this will help you gauge whether the candidate is a good fit, regardless of their crypto experience. Let this always be your guide.

Since you’re targeting curious candidates, tailor your pitch to them. Start by explaining the two cultural narratives in crypto: the “computer culture,” which sees blockchain as a tool for building new networks and driving a new computing movement, and the “casino culture,” which focuses on speculation, trading, and gambling. Then, share how this emerging industry offers a unique opportunity to reshape the future of technology, much like the early days of the internet.

A useful thought experiment is to try talking about your product and company without mentioning crypto. What problems does your company solve? What inspired you to start it? Why does it make the world better? This approach helps convey your company’s philosophy and vision without distracting listeners with technical details.

Another good starting point is to simply ask, “What do you know about crypto?” Even if the response is skeptical or negative—based on news stories or casino culture narratives—this opens a dialogue and allows you to address their real concerns: external factors (policy), internal factors (technical complexity), personal factors (risk tolerance), etc. You can acknowledge that many in crypto share some of these doubts and steer the conversation toward the cool technical problems your project is solving.

Not everyone is primarily motivated by money, but you should also be prepared to highlight the financial upside of crypto. Historically, top talent has been reluctant to join early-stage companies for three main reasons: (1) intense work culture, (2) poor work-life balance, and (3) lack of liquidity compensation. Even if you address the first two, the third can still cause you to lose many potential candidates.

Compared to the rare liquidity events like IPOs or acquisitions in Web2, innovations in compensation, such as token-based structures, can offer financial benefits and liquidity for early-stage companies. Be sure to use vesting/token grant plans that align employees with long-term goals, binding them to the company’s success over time. Compensation is a complex topic and obviously top of mind for job seekers, so make sure you’re well-prepared to discuss it.

If you execute these steps well, you’ll have a great chance of attracting top talent from outside the industry to your company. Next, you need to help them understand how they can contribute their best work day to day.

---

Onboarding Considerations

Integrating new talent into a Web3 company requires accelerating their adaptation through education. You’ve already identified each candidate’s knowledge gaps during the interview process. Use this information to design an onboarding experience that fills those gaps as quickly as possible.

For example, new hires may need help moving beyond the technical details of blockchain and decentralized systems to understand the real-world problems they’ll be solving and to build confidence in their roles.

Regular knowledge-sharing sessions, where new employees can engage with more experienced crypto-native team members, foster collaboration and allow everyone to learn from each other’s strengths. Mentorship programs pairing newcomers with seasoned Web3 professionals provide valuable hands-on learning. Even better, you can structure programs so that crypto “unicorns” (those with all the skills, knowledge, and background) pair with new hires, helping them develop into their own crypto unicorns over time.

Upskilling and education are essential and will remain so as the industry evolves. Resources like blockchain-related blogs, podcasts, and educational courses—covering topics such as how to use smart wallets, staking, tokenomics, smart contract design, or basic blockchain concepts—are great starting points for continuous learning. Mentorship from established crypto organizations can offer practical experience, and insights from industry thought leaders through reports (including our own “State of Crypto” report) can provide deep insights.

The key is that whatever your new hires need to excel, your job is to help them learn, find, or access those resources from day one.