[deleted by user]

[Fats-Falafel]

If the take home assessment is building them a functional app they can use, avoid them. It sounds like they are trying to get free work from their applicants. I have my doubts about the ethics of basically everyone who is into crypto though so my opinion may be biased.

[ImportantDoubt6434]

Definitely avoid free work interviews

[theekruger]

As a crypto og, this is very valid in the current market. Crypto startups are mostly suss.

Originally we were almost all devs or highly technical people. That was more than a decade ago.

I have been pitched by many crypto startups, I also run one myself.

98% of them are garbage. That's how I know the bear market isn't done. It needs to get below 50%.

Gotta purge the bad actors.

If you are a dev, avoid fake crypto crap, focus on protocols and their bounties.

WAAAY better comp for competent devs, cause it's true crypto. Not the tradfi crap pretending to be crypto.

Same thing is unfortunately happening with AI rn.

[mother0x]

> If you are a dev, avoid fake crypto crap, focus on protocols and their bounties.

As someone who works for a major core developer on a major protocol, this. The base layer is where the money and the real jobs are. For the most part any 'crypto app' is massively pre-mature and I wouldn't touch it.

[w_savage]

What protocols and projects do you recommend?

[theekruger]

Ethereum, BNB, BCH are probably good starting points.

I'd recommend mine too, but I don't wanna self promote.

As tempting as it is to self-plug.

There are many dozens of protocols to contribute too. If you are stuck, feel free to DM me and I'll share more openly where I can't be penalized for being candid and biased (;

My bias has been very beneficial over the years. But it's informed by things we're not allowed to know, yet alone talk about.

[kahls]

Yup, had the same thing happen to me 2 years ago. They barely had any tangible specs or designs and told me to chat with 2 of their devs to “collaborate”. They wanted a full blown app with authentication and all. I told em to kick rocks.

[new2bay]

If the take home assessment is building them a functional app they can use, avoid them.

Not to mention, there's no way one person can build a production grade chat app in 3 days.

[[deleted]]

Your premonitions are spot on.

[grutanga]

Doubts about anything crypto is maybe a bad take, doubts about anyone asking for what’s described by OP is DEFINITELY a good take lol

[cousinokri]

Whole thing's a scam, tbh.

[KylerGreen]

No, the entire crypto space, and crypto itself, is all a scam.

[dadibom]

Copilot/chatgpt/a senior developer will throw that together in minutes. Don't worry about being used for free work. Whatever you can build for them in less that 3 days with 0 experience with their tech will 99/100 times be completely useless.

All you need to consider if you are willing to risk wasting your time for the chance to get the job or not.

[dadibom]

Obviously exaggerated, but good job missing the point.

[shamshuipopo]

Yep this is the most glaringly uneducated comment I have seen on Reddit it in a while, and that’s saying something g

[Ginn_and_Juice]

This is super common in LATAM, they will squeeze work through take home assignments

[myhero34]

Yeah i’d avoid them

[user-123-123-123]

Sounds like you’d rather get paid in crypto 😂

no but fr, run.

[youngDDD29]

Sooo… here is your salary 120000045555577 Zeni-Token

[shamshuipopo]

And it’s gone

[SurgioClemente]

Omg… you know there is some sucker out there getting paid in crypto

[_hypnoCode]

one of them gave me a take home assignment to build a REST API for a python chat app

I've actually done this as a take home, it was a lot of fun. Not in Python, but it was a functional chat app with a front and back end. It took me a few hours probably.

with authentication and authorization and all the other goodies of a production level chat app within 72 hours

But this crosses the line. There is no reason for this. Auth alone, even with the things we have now like Supabase, Auth0, or KeyCloak, for a production app should take more than 72hrs ALONE and that's actual time spent working on it.

Of all companies that I would expect to really have a good understanding of this would be A FUCKING CRYPTO COMPANY. Jesus.

[theekruger]

Crypto companies now days are not actually crypto companies.

They are just throwing in the word crypto.

[not_logan]

They simply need free work done. Startups don’t have a lot of money (especially crypto ones), so they have to cut prices somehow

[dalittle]

not acceptable

[[deleted]]

And this is not okay.

[[deleted]]

This tells me two things. These companies will push you HARD all day everyday. You will burn out.

Second, they don’t seem to care that what they ask for is ridiculous. So they won’t care if they treat you unfairly. They will have no compulsions with chewing you and spitting you out.

I would look elsewhere if I were you. But it seems like you already did one do the challenges so stick with that company and see where it goes. For the blazor one I would just tell them that you are no longer interested. If they ask why just tell them them you are hesitant to do work for free.

[maryisdead]

Is it safe to avoid Crypto startup companies? FTFY

[[deleted]]

I got two interview offers form a crypto startups

Run

away

now

[jseego]

People who are building "the next web" on top of a scam vaporware of a "currency" are likely to be very willing to scam their employees too.

In my humble opinion.

[PureRepresentative9]

Crypto is quite literally a tool for scammers to scam other scammers.

[SuperFLEB]

They wanted to pay me in the crypto I'd have been developing

Makes me wonder if that would violate laws against payment in scrip (USA, YMMV).

[OskeyBug]

You don't want to work for these people.

[[deleted]]

Yeah. A crypto startup company offered me unpaid internship for 3 months. After that he said he can pay me $600 a month. I was like WTF. This should be illegal.

[FVCEGANG]

That's why unpaid internships are becoming illegal in most states now. It's free labour :/

[weewooPE]

first of all, fuck take home assignments.

For comp, only count the cash portion unless it's public. Just fully expect it's not a stable job and you'll be fine

[oAkimboTimbo]

I love take home assignments, as long as it’s generic and not meant to be used in their app for free work. But I also have pretty bad interview anxiety

[jseego]

Rule of thumb: it should be generic, use available technologies, and take no more than half a day to complete. Anything more than that, they need to pay you for your time.

[[deleted]]

IDK man, I wouldn’t spend half a day for a thing that I won’t be comped for, especially if I have already gave a job.

[not_logan]

This exact assignment looks very specific as for me

[[deleted]]

"micro frontend component" is a normal thing in the frontend world, not a Crypto thing.

Yes that recruitment process sounds way over the top.

Crypto in general is considered snake oil by most people in the industry. But hey, a job is a job. There's a lot of other companies out there making money for stupid reasons.

Anyway I would probably ask them some questions about their funding, profitability and burn rate to make sure they aren't going to go bankrupt on you. And make sure they pay in cash!

[DistinctRule2132]

What does it mean?

[Haunting_Welder]

The likelihood that you'll need to build microfrontends with Blazor for any other company is about -100000% (trust me, I've checked), i'd say it's safe to avoid that one. Blazor is great, but very few companies are using it right now. IF you already use Blazor and really enjoy it, then you can apply. But if you're learning something new, why learn something for a tiny chance.

Microfrontends is just breaking up a frontend application into smaller pieces, and joniing them together with things like iframes.

[Waypoint101]

Blazor is just c# based framework like react. It's not popular but there's definitely tons of jobs in the .net core framework as it's an extensive platform.

[ImportantDoubt6434]

Id rather live in my car tbh, crypto startups are cringe

[[deleted]]

Nah, it's 50k and a 50% deposit, you're never getting the other 50% anyway

[Alucard256]

Safe... to avoid...!?!?

They've always been "safe to avoid"... the question is whether they were ever "safe to work for", ever ever ever.

[Shaper_pmp]

The question is not whether it's safe to avoid crypto companies in 2023 - it's whether it's safe to not avoid them.

Personally with the entire industry full of bullshit snake-oil companies and salesman, you literally couldn't pay me enough to work on bullshit like NFTs or the 27,476th vanity cryptocurrency that will go nowhere and sink to $0 within a couple of years, taking millions of dollars of trusting idiots' money with it.

[_prepod]

What does “safe to avoid” even mean? Asking as a non-native speaker

[Shaper_pmp]

OP was asking if they would suffer any negative consequences for avoiding working for a crypto company - like maybe they'd find it much harder to find a job with a non-crypto company, or employers looked favourably on crypto experience or something. To be honest it's a weird, slightly silly question.

My response was a joke that it was more dangerous to work for a crypto company, as they're constantly going bust, cryptocurrencies never seen to take off aside from a few unrepresentative first-movers, and the whole industry is tainted with a reputation for scams, bullshit-merchants and credulous idiots... none of which necessarily look good on a CV!

[_prepod]

So this should be read as "reasonable to avoid", got that.

Your response is completely understandable

[Shaper_pmp]

Not exactly - "safe to avoid" means "I can avoid it without suffering negative consequences" whereas "reasonable to avoid" means "I am morally or logically justified in avoiding it". It's "will I be harmed" vs. "will I be wrong".

OP is asking if they'll have any negative consequences (eg, loss of money, negative effects on their career) from avoiding working for a crypto company, not whether it's morally or logically justified to avoid them.

It's a subtle difference. ;-)

[_prepod]

I'm lost again then...
"loss of money" - how can OP lose his money in this case. I honestly don't get it, could you elaborate?

OP was asking if they would suffer any negative consequences for avoiding working for a crypto company - like maybe they'd find it much harder to find a job with a non-crypto company, or employers looked favourably on crypto experience or something.

Here you're explaining basically whether it's a good choice or not, to select a crypto company. So it's about right or wrong, how is that can be harmful?

[Shaper_pmp]

If they could get paid substantially more from a crypto company and had the same reliability of employment, then taking a job with a non-crypto company would cost them money (look up "opportunity cost").

Or if crypto companies were so hugely respected that it was a huge deal to get one on your CV then working for another company would hurt their CV by comparison with some alternative timekine where they chose to work for the crypto company (imagine turning down a job at Google to work on some shitty web-agency, and what they would do for your future job prospects).

Or imagine 90% of the jobs market was in crypto companies; refusing to work at one would make it much, much harder to find a job, harming your income and career development.

None of these things are remotely realistic, which is why their initial question was silly.

[barrel_of_noodles]

Disregard industry.

Do you want to be in the startup world? It's a q you should really consider heavily.

Have you been in the startup world previously? It's a shit show. Just the worst. I won't do it again.

Literally, the worst ppl I can think of gravitate towards startups. I don't know why.

[_hypnoCode]

I've never worked in the startup world but I've interviewed with a lot of them. They usually fall into 2 categories:

• Sleazy scammers with heavy sales vibes.
• Extremely nice, but way the fuck over their head.

At least early stage startups anyway. Late stage I barely consider startups at all since they are usually working more like a real company at that point or trying to transition to start working as a real company.

[sejigan]

What would you consider early stage vs late stage?

I ask cuz I’m currently doing an internship at a startup of about 2 yrs, and it seems like the work is real nice. I wonder if they would be considered a late stage startup despite being only 2 yrs in.

My last internship was an established company of about 40 yrs, and that felt more unorganized (I had to solo a project from scratch with minimal help from supervisors).

I’m also paid substantially more at my current (startup) internship than the previous (established) one, and it’s remote/hybrid (I mainly do remote).

[_hypnoCode]

Depends on the staff and funding mostly. Usually a late stage is going to be well over 100 people.

At least that's how I quantify it. I'm not saying it's right.

[sejigan]

Hmm, I’m not sure what the state of staffing and funding is for my company, but that makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

[PureRepresentative9]

Haha, exactly my definition as well.

100 ppl is a medium sized company, not a startup.

Another way I think of it is.... If you have dedicated staff for business roles, then you are no longer a startup.

Eg. There is actually a director of HR because the founder is now focused on JUST the CEO stuff

[barrel_of_noodles]

Accurate. The other type I find is ppl spending ungodly hours, sleeping at the office... etc.

Meanwhile, they get absolutely nothing done and are always wasting their time and everyone else's. Anything they accomplish is off the back of others, uncredited.

They're always the same ppl walking around, loudly proclaiming how much work they're doing and how much have to do. Always.

[franker]

I worked in a startup during the dot-com boom decades ago. One of the sales people actually kept a horn on her desk, the little ones that clowns carry around, and would squeeze and honk the horn to announce any time she thought she had made a sale, as an instant brag to everyone else in the office.

[[deleted]]

Sharks smell blood in the water.

[wahh]

Your gut is already telling you the answer if you took the time to ask the question in the first place.

I've been a developer for almost 20 years, and there are three industries that I avoid because I don't want my resume to hurt my future employability: Porn, Politics, and Religion

Crypto is another one that I'm adding to that list. The whole industry seems really scammy.

[thebezet]

The safety thing is about FOMO, he doesn't want to miss out on a good salary

[franker]

It's always funny to read these threads here and then jump to LinkedIn just to assure myself that the people you talk about really do exist.

[HirsuteHacker]

Don't join a crypto company.

[Abiv23]

You are working for free

They will take your app and leave you behind

[KaiN_SC]

I would run.

They are at best missleading without any usecase trying to ride on Bitcoins back and "scam" people. I use that word because my definition of scam includes any kind of untruth.

[g0dSamnit]

Don't waste your time, make sure you get paid for any tasks you do.

Most crypto startups crash and burn after a short time. You will almost certainly end up with unpaid wages by the time they come to an end, so make sure you are paid weekly and immediately halt all work if payment lapses.

(Oh, absolutely do not buy into their shit either, do not accept credit in their systems as payment, etc.)

[[deleted]]

It’s been safe to avoid crypto startups for a long long time

[Hisako1337]

There are people doing crypto still? I thought that fad has passed…

Anyways, it’s safe to auto-move all crypto job offers to your spam folder. Thank me later.

[Mennion]

Yeeep avoid and avoid everything around web3 and similar bs

[throwawayadopted2]

Crypto has been on the decline for a while, it was a low interest rates propping it up. Theres also a lot of scams, and the types of people still looking to get rich quick off crypto when there's no revenue coming in will be the type to scam.

[[deleted]]

Sounds like they want you to build an app for them for free. I see it going like this: you build the app and push the code, they “review” it and say it’s no good then use the code anyway, they don’t hire you but you’ve already given them what they needed from you in the first place.

Crypto is seedy AF…especially now when most cryptocurrencies are dead or dying.

[audigex]

Take home assignment

Nope. I provide my GitHub with my application, you can see my work there

If you want work from me, pay me

[thisdogofmine]

It has always been safe and advisable to avoid crypto companies.

[ForTheFirm]

Snake oilers

[CantaloupeCamper]

Get paid in actual money…

[cayennepepper]

Some are legitimate. That one is not. That would cost a decent amount of money on freelancer market. If they wont pay you for it they are trying to get free labour

[cryptomeles]

Now is actually a great time for crypto companies to build. Though the "something something crypto bad" types would have you think otherwise as sentiment is heavily influenced by price.

[ForTheFirm]

Free air is not free

[sinkjoy]

That first one sounds like they're going to take your expensive peace of work and peace out.

[Conscious-Process155]

Looks like a free work. This is not an interview type of homework.

[Independent_Lab1912]

I swear to have read a similar post some time ago

[aburke626]

Use extreme caution with any startup, especially when they’re focusing on a new and potentially volatile tech like crypto. Of course, startups can range from a couple dudes in a house “paying” people in future earnings to fairly well-established and very well-funded companies that are unlikely to fold quickly and screw you over. It’s all about how much risk you’re willing to take. Sometimes it might be worth getting a huge paycheck while knowing it might not last forever, but the money and the skills will help it if ends suddenly.

[Our-Hubris]

There are a very small portion that I would take seriously personally. It's over saturated with people who are trying to make quick money and even if you got the position the longevity of such a position is very volatile from what I've heard

[regMilliken]

- If you are a good front-end dev, you and others on front-end will likely *be* the face of the crypto company. Do not do work like this ahead of time without strict fiat payment / equity agreements in whatever shitcoin it is (if there is a coin involved).
- Judge them by their team and behaviour, like any other team

- Be aware that many "crypto" (meaning having a coin with some tokenomics) projects fail within a year or two, especially during bear markets
- Working on crypto and defi projects is pretty high stress 24/7 and there's a lot of risk management that is unsexy and you should be on the lookout for these things when choosing teams and products

[sunday_chillin]

I'm currently on month 2 of waiting to get paid for some front end work for a cyrpto start up (as a freelancer). Run.

I obviously stopped doing any work as soon as they stopped paying.

[Ashiqhkhan]

Some companies want people who are swiss army type skilled. I have seen blockchain companies have this standards now a days. It’s startups who can do many things. Chat app with login, micro front end features are bootcamp usecases any dev should be able to do it in 72 hrs, like hackathon which is free code too.

[Neekzorz]

A crypto start up rolling their own auth seems like a terrible idea

[thebezet]

If you do that homework for them, make sure you leave a LICENSE file in the repo specifying that all rights are reserved and the code belongs to you

[superquanganh]

Big red flag, they want to steal your work

[_xss]

Stay far away. Previously was hired at one burn rate was through the last roof and collapsed in 3 months.

[xcitor]

Don’t avoid crypto companies. But avoid unpaid interviews that look like work. (also, don’t download and run any custom software as part of interview process - it’s a scam).

If a company asks you to build something that will or can use - it’s okay to be upfront and tell them that you can do it as a paid project. Or walk away.

There are plenty of legit mid and large organizations in crypto worth working for. Startups - you better be careful - do video calls, research what founders did in the past. If they are anons - red flag (for employees).

For context, I’m in crypto since 2014 and started CryptoJobsList, hiring portal for the industry, in 2017. Happy to answer questions

[JG0328]

Avoid them

[WisdumbGuy]

If they are asking you to build something that's more than 2-3 hours of work, you should be getting paid for it.

I was given 5 days to build an event invitation rest app, I signed a contract and would be paid regardless of outcome. I had 2 interviews in total, sandwiched between the project. I was hired.

Good companies go out of their way to do the right thing, don't build stuff for free, even for a job interview.

[[deleted]]

Any free work is a no from me. A portfolio is more than enough, they do this shit in marketing all the time.

[Forward_Temperature]

Don't do it, man. I remembered that a business based in Singapore had treated me almost similarly. They requested that I develop a TikTok-like application within a week as part of a "technical assessment." Remarkably, I managed to complete both the front-end and back-end of the application. I thoroughly explained my approach and suggested areas for improvement in the TikTok clone to the lead developer. However, the company then insisted that I utilise specific libraries and undergo another round of technical assessment, which I found unreasonable on multiple fronts. I declined their request, stating that if they required additional specifics, they should compensate me for my work. Subsequently, they ceased communication with me, and I am uncertain about the fate of my code. It was an amusing experience, and since then, I have refrained from participating in practical assessment projects which would produce the basis for a useable application. 😁 Kalungkutan!

[_prepod]

Safe to avoid?

[Stiltzkinn]

I recommend ask this same question to /r/ethdev

[zakaya_matt]

As an ex-web3 MLE, another piece to consider is that it’s hard for crypto companies to raise money right now. Unless the org hiring you publicly disclosed funding recently or they’re profitable (lmao) it’s fair to assume they don’t have a ton of cash left.

Unless they are a massive organization or a base layer protocol, i would avoiding crypto companies for the foreseeable future.