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DeFi Talents Program: Your Next Leadership Opportunity

Success Stories

by Dragan Djekov

As of fall 2021, Blocksize Capital is a proud sponsor of the 18-week long DeFi Talents mentoring program operated by the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center and parenting organizations. The program aims to empower talent for leadership in the decentralized finance space, and it consists of 3 phases that are designed to usher ambitious career starters into the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. The DeFi space is increasing in importance like never before, and the DeFi Talents program is your opportunity to become an entrepreneur, a technologist, a lawyer, or an investor that is equipped with the right skill set in order to thrive in this environment. The DeFi Talents program is completely free of charge, with a maximum of 100 available spots, and the application deadline is March 20, 2022.

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) explained

DeFi is bringing forth a new financial architecture with loan protocols (e.g. Aave, Compound), trading protocols (e.g. Uniswap, Sushi), derivative protocols (e.g. Synthetix), asset management protocols (e.g. Yearn). Decentralized Finance is a term used for technologies and platforms that foster decentralized financial markets and services. In order to get access to these markets and services, a minimum requirement of having a device with Internet access and the willingness to learn is necessary – thereby eliminating the involvement of traditional players such as banks that act as intermediaries in the process. DeFi allows for transactions on the blockchain varying from basic peer-to-peer cash functionalities, to complex financial operations. The network and the prototypes developed in the DeFi space today will lay the foundation for essential professional relationships and real-life projects in a couple of months or years – which is why now is the optimal time to immerse yourself and build the right network.

Your opportunities after completing the DeFi Talents program

The 18-week-long training can help you kick-start your career in the following fields:

  • Becoming an entrepreneur of a successful DeFi startup that is quickly valued at more than US $1,000,000
  • Becoming a technologist or developer ready to work on DeFi applications or token protocols
  • Becoming a lawyer helping to advise entrepreneurs and companies in the future
  • Becoming an investor (or venture capitalist) helping to shape the future of startups and protocols
  • Becoming a multiplicator or influencer in the DeFi space and an important “node” of the network

So far, the program counts close to 450 applications, 100 of which were mentored in the first batch from 2021 to 2022 – making them ready for jobs in the blockchain space. It is expected that 50 talents easily find a job in the DeFi space. The following graphic illustrates the plans of the DeFi Talents program from 2022 and beyond.

Source: https://philippsandner.medium.com/call-for-application-for-defi-talents-an-18-week-mentoring-program-empowering-talent-for-121db00c70fc

Why is the DeFi Talents program different from conventional lecturing?

The program empowers participants to learn DeFi using blended learning concepts built upon peer learning. This is explicitly not a university lecture. The learning journey is facilitated by a curated study guide. You ought to commit to self-studying the proposed concepts and come prepared for all joint Zoom sessions. In other words, you are your own teacher.

The Zoom sessions serve as a venue to deepen your knowledge and clarify your open questions. You will be asked to actively share your learnings and questions in these sessions in order to foster progress through guided individual and group reflection.

You will be asked to become a DeFi co-creator, be it by writing a blog article, interviewing other DeFi experts, or creating a video on a DeFi topic (e.g. on Medium or YouTube) and get public exposure. Be confident that whatever you produce will be brilliant! Based on the program’s experience, by “owning” a specific topic, your own journey accelerates and becomes more fulfilling.

How the program is structured

All program participants get to choose their specific domain, however, it is necessary to first learn the basics of DeFi, as well as get to know as many stakeholder domains as possible.

For this reason, the program is structured along a 3-phase model: the basics phase, the multi-disciplinary phase, and ultimately the concentration phase. The graphic below provides a chronological overview of each of the individual phases over the course of 18 weeks. Every two weeks, the group meets virtually in a 90-minute Zoom session.

In Phase 1, you will be acquiring generalist knowledge, where you’ll get to learn the fundamentals of blockchain, crypto assets, and DeFi, establishing a strong foundation in order to venture into various stakeholder domains later on.

In Phase 2, you will get insights into specific stakeholder domains, such as entrepreneurship, IT development, regulations, venture capital, and media.

In Phase 3, you will be focusing on your chosen stakeholder domain and you will develop deep knowledge about it, and as a result, you will develop from a generalist to a specialist.

Source: https://philippsandner.medium.com/call-for-application-for-defi-talents-an-18-week-mentoring-program-empowering-talent-for-121db00c70fc

DeFi Talents program curriculum

The table below breaks down the program’s curriculum into the specific phases, sessions, weeks, dates, and topics accordingly.

Source: https://philippsandner.medium.com/call-for-application-for-defi-talents-an-18-week-mentoring-program-empowering-talent-for-121db00c70fc

How can you apply to the DeFi Talents program?

If you are 18 or over and entrepreneurial-minded, you can dedicate at least 12 hours per week to learning, you are passionate about fintech and proficient in English, mathematics and at least one programming language, you have had leadership and public speaking experience, you are motivated to try out and compare different DeFi protocols (Aave, Compound, Uniswap, etc.) on Ethereum or another base layer, and if you are a well-structured individual, giving your best to attend every single session of the program’s schedule (every second Monday, starting on April 11, 2022; starting approximately at 7 PM CET), seize this unique career opportunity and apply through the link below:

Original Source: Prof. Dr. Philipp Sandner, Head of Frankfurt School Blockchain Center, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management: Call for Applications for DeFi Talents: An 18-Week Mentoring Program Empowering Talent for Leadership in the Decentralized Finance Space

Should you have any DeFi or program-specific questions, contact our Head of DeFi & Node Operations, Michael Wutzke:

Michael Wutzke
Blocksize Capital
Head of DeFi & Node Operations

Check out these exciting vacancies at Blocksize Capital:

Full-Stack Developer for Blockchain Applications (m/f/d)

Your tasks:

You will be developing DLT-based products for sustainability tracking and supply-chain management, and digitalizing existing production practices with innovative solutions to improve sustainability standards and reduce carbon emissions. You will design and implement seamless processes which allow investors to easily and intuitively sign-up and invest in projects, and drive user experience through innovative software design. You will be working within a highly motivated and professional scrum team and take over backend related development tasks for our investment banking solution. You are going to work at the interface to Blockchain and integrate such solutions into our application. You will become a part of our delivery team that works on agile software projects and you will help us meet a high-quality standard for our projects and our customers by optimizing existing software solutions and making them understandable internally and externally. With us, you will have the opportunity to try out new things and thus actively and creatively participate.

Your profile:

  • Passion for software development, esp. modern backend technologies
  • Relevant full-stack development experience working on Enterprise-grade projects or startups
  • Good experience with GoLang
  • Experience in RESTful API, PostgreSQL and JSON
  • Min. 3 years experience as a backend developer
  • Interest in financial topics (i.e. carbon markets)
  • Interest and/or experience in blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies
  • Familiar with the following tech stack & motivation to learn more: GoLang, PostgreSQL, React.js
  • Agility and self-organization
  • Result orientation, conceptual and analytical thinking.
  • Comfortable operating in an Agile environment
  • Collaborative by nature; willing to give and receive feedback
  • Open to learning
  • You have fun at doing your work and hence being good at it

Bonus points for:

  • Understanding Blockchain technology, especially Ethereum
  • Experience deploying blockchain networks and applications
  • Blockchain / smart contract development: Solidity / Ethereum, Web3.js or Ethers.js library

Your chances:

  • Become part of a young and successful company with already first major projects in the field of Blockchain and FinTech
  • Deal with topics that are really fun, interesting, and challenging
  • Leave your Footprint, because your ideas are important to us
  • The result counts! We pursue a flexible working time and workplace model (home office)
  • Support as you need it: you have an experienced mentor at your side
  • Our claim is always to know more than the others: Continuous and qualitatively unique further training is a “must” for every employee
  • Flexible Working Times
  • Excellent infrastructure (Apple Equipment, Coursera, Gym, etc.)

Our services:

  • Development of customer-specific digitization strategies
  • Strategic and technological consulting
  • Accompaniment of complete transformation programs
  • Creation of market insights in the field of FinTech

Our business fields:

  • Blockchain and other DLTs
  • Tokenization of assets

Send us your CV and tell us why you’d like to join our team!

Frontend Developer for Blockchain Applications (m/f/d)

Your tasks:

You will be joining our team of engineers and other colleagues with an eye for design, working on data visualization with a fantastic data set to work on. You will be automating manual data processing to unlock the full potential of product and business analytics. You will have the opportunity to work on products with real impact: your work will touch millions of end-users, the best applications using blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies, and major financial institutions. You will be working with Interactive applications built on modern front-end frameworks like React.

Your role briefly explained:

  • Develop DLT-based products for sustainability tracking and supply-chain management
  • Digitalize existing production practices with innovative solutions to improve sustainability standards and reduce carbon emissions
  • Design and implement seamless processes which allow investors to easily and intuitively sign-up and invest in projects
  • Drive user experience through innovative software design
  • Work within a highly motivated and professional scrum team and take over backend related development tasks for our investment banking solution
  • Work at the interface to Blockchain and integrate such solutions into our application
  • You are part of our delivery team and we work on agile software projects
  • We meet a high-quality standard for our projects and our customers
  • Optimize existing software solutions and make them understandable internally and externally
  • With us, you will have the opportunity to try out new things and thus actively and creatively participate

Your profile:

  • Passion for software development, esp. modern frontend technologies
  • Relevant frontend development experience working on Enterprise-grade projects or startups
  • Relevant experience with React.js
  • Experience and/or interest with Web3
  • Experience with Unit and e2e testing
  • Agility and self-organization
  • Result orientation, conceptual and analytical thinking.
  • Comfortable operating in an Agile environment
  • Collaborative by nature; willing to give and receive feedback
  • Open to learning
  • You have fun at doing your work and hence being good at it

Bonus points for:

  • Understanding Blockchain technology, especially Ethereum
  • Experience working with blockchain networks and applications

Your chances:

  • Become part of a young and successful company with already first major projects in the field of Blockchain and FinTech
  • Deal with topics that are really fun, interesting, and challenging
  • Leave your Footprint, because your ideas are important to us
  • The result counts! We pursue a flexible working time and workplace model (home office)
  • Support as you need it: you have an experienced mentor at your side
  • Our claim is always to know more than the others: Continuous and qualitatively unique further training is a “must” for every employee
  • Flexible Working Times
  • Excellent infrastructure (Apple Equipment, Coursera, Gym, etc.)

Our services:

  • Development of customer-specific digitization strategies
  • Strategic and technological consulting
  • Accompaniment of complete transformation programs
  • Creation of market insights in the field of FinTech

Our business fields:

  • Blockchain and other DLTs
  • Tokenization of assets

Send us your CV and tell us why you’d like to join our team!

DevOps Specialist (m/f/d)

Your tasks:

You will be responsible for maintaining full nodes for various blockchains and finding ways to deploy and manage them more efficiently. You understand blockchain-specific monitoring in great depth and you will be helping the team cut down on noise by fine-tuning alerts. You will help by troubleshooting production issues to address technical commitments and boost sustainability, as well as pair with other engineers to help with troubleshooting, deploying new services, and figuring out how to increase developer velocity and eliminate pain points.

Required Skills:

  • 3+ years of relevant professional experience using Linux environments (Ubuntu). You probably have an operations background, have worked in a DevOps team before.
  • Experience with scripting and configuration management. You can write scripts to automate routine tasks.
  • Experience with monitoring and logging.
  • Experience with distributed systems and container orchestration.
  • Ability to design and execute network, server, and application status monitoring.

Preferred Skills:

  • Setup and management of Kubernetes clusters and you feel comfortable deploying completely new services on them.
  • Know how to export metrics to Prometheus, have built a Grafana dashboard or two.
  • Excitement for blockchain, Web 3.0, and similar decentralized technologies.
  • Experience running blockchain full nodes would give you a considerable advantage in this role.
  • Experience working with AWS or Microsoft Azure.
  • Having worked with SQL before (ideally PostgreSQL).
  • A strong desire to grow and challenge yourself.
  • Interest and/or experience in blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies.
  • Agility, self-organization, and open to learning
  • Result orientation, conceptual and analytical thinking.
  • Collaborative by nature; willing to give and receive feedback.
  • You have fun at doing your work and hence being good at it.

Soft Skills:

  • Result-oriented, structured, implementation-driven and willing to embrace challenges.
  • You are a team player and know agile approaches.
  • Self-reliant in development and implementation as well as in ongoing operations and support of innovative ideas.
  • Be familiar with the solutions Blocksize Capital offers.

Your Chances:

  • Become part of a young and agile team.
  • Take an interest in topics that are really fun, interesting and challenging.
  • Leave your footprint, because your ideas and solutions are important to us!
  • The result counts! We pursue a flexible working time and workplace model (home office).
  • Our claim is to always know more: Continuous and qualitatively unique further training is a „must“ for every employee.
  • Excellent infrastructure of your choice (Apple, BYOD, Coursera, Gym, etc.).

Offered Services:

  • Development of customer-specific asset management solutions
  • Accompaniment of complete transformation programs
  • Creation of new insights in the field of crypto assets

The Company:

Blocksize Capital is a software provider with a clear focus on DLT- and blockchain-based assets aiming to transform the financial industry and challenge existing business models. More details: About the company

Send us your CV and tell us why you’d like to join our team!

Backend Developer (m/f/d)

Our stack:

Our frontend is powered by React and Typescript, communicates via Grpc-Web and REST to our microservices written in Golang. We carefully store customers data in Postgresql and deploy to Kubernetes powered by Google Cloud. We keep our code in Gitlab and follow continuous delivery with help of Gitlab CI. Our work is managed in Jira and Confluence. We are opened to edge technologies and moving towards Terraform and Cypress.

You will enjoy:

  • Creating beautiful and fast code that improves our code base in meaningful ways
  • Collaborating with other backend engineers and frontend team
  • Freedom to make your own decisions (we trust our employees and invest in their success) 
  • Learning the latest technologies and environment where learning is paramount
  • Cross code-reviews and brainstorming on architecture
  • Fix mistakes quickly and take time to solve difficult problems well

What is important for success in this role:

  • Proficiency in Golang or any other strongly typed programming language like Java/C#/Rust/C++
  • Basic experience with Postgres or MySQL
  • Ability to identify spaghetti code and make suggestions on improvements
  • Understanding basic Git and Jira workflows
  • You come not only with questions, but also with suggestions and improvements
  • A commitment and drive for quality, technical excellence and results
  • Fluent in English (German would be a nice addition)

What would be nice to have on top:

  • Skilled in technologies like GRPC, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, Gitlab CI
  • DevOps skills
  • Interest in financial and/or blockchain domain

Benefits of working with us:

  • The result counts! We pursue a flexible working time
  • Work from home or enjoy our office in the Frankfurt city center
  • Educational budget
  • 30 day of paid vacation
  • Apple equipment
  • Free German language courses
  • Fitness Membership

We offer an outstanding opportunity for a highly motivated individual to participate in the growth of a successful technology company in the financial sector. We know that looking for a new role can be both exciting and time-consuming, and we truly appreciate your effort.

Send us your CV and tell us why you’d like to join our team!

Crypto Assets Backend Developer – Quantitative Trading (m/f/d)

Your tasks:

You will join our team developing the infrastructure which trades crypto assets. Your main tasks include the development of new trading strategies and to help us grow our established quant desk.

You will help us to continuously improve our robust and low-latency infrastructure capable of handling large amounts of data while remaining highly scalable under different demands.

Tech Skills:

  • You are a passionate Quant with 1-3 years of experience in the area of electronic trading
  • You have successfully completed a degree in computer science, business informatics, business information systems, physics or equivalent (MINT)
  • Profound experience in the development of Python
  • Strong interest in financial concepts in the realm of Blockchain / DLT
  • Good understanding of secure RESTful & WebSocket APIs
  • Thorough documentation and unit-testing skills
  • An understanding of microservice communication patterns (message driven as well as point-to-point based)

Soft Skills:

  • Result-oriented, structured, implementation-driven and willing to embrace challenges
  • You are a team player and know agile approaches
  • Self-reliant in development and implementation as well as in ongoing operations and support of innovative ideas

Your chances:

  • Become part of a young and agile team
  • Take an interest in topics that are really fun, interesting and challenging
  • Leave your footprint, because your ideas and solutions are important to us!
  • The result counts! We pursue a flexible working time and workplace model (home office)
  • Our claim is to always know more: Continuous and qualitatively unique further training is a „must“ for every employee
  • Excellent infrastructure of your choice (Apple, BYOD, Coursera, Gym, etc.)

Our business fields:

  • Blockchain (DLT)
  • Crypto Assets & Digital Banking

Send us your CV and tell us why you’d like to join our team!

Quality Assurance Engineer (Manual/Automation) (m/f/d)

Our stack:

Our frontend is powered by React and Typescript, communicates via Grpc-Web and REST to our microservices written in Golang. We carefully store customers data in Postgresql and deploy to Kubernetes powered by Google Cloud. We keep our code in Gitlab and follow continuous delivery with help of Gitlab CI. Our work is managed in Jira and Confluence. We are opened to edge technologies and moving towards Terraform and Cypress.

You will enjoy:

  • Creating use cases that will drive both manual and automated tests
  • Performing test scoping, estimation, preparation and execution for application enhancements and bug fixes
  • Defining and implementing tools to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of QA
  • Maintaining and expanding our automated testing infrastructure
  • Freedom to make your own decisions (we trust our employees and invest in their success) 
  • Learning the latest technologies  and environment where learning is paramount

What is important for success in this role:

  • Basic experience with Javascript or Typescript along with Cypress or at least Selenium
  • Understanding Jira and Git workflows
  • A commitment and drive for quality, technical excellence and results
  • Fluent in English (German would be a nice addition)

What would be nice to have on top:

  • A feeling for great user experience
  • Interest in financial and/or blockchain domain

Benefits of working with us:

  • The result counts! We pursue a flexible working time
  • Work from home or enjoy our office in the Frankfurt city center
  • Educational budget
  • 30 day of paid vacation
  • Apple equipment
  • Free German language courses
  • Fitness Membership

We offer an outstanding opportunity for a highly motivated individual to participate in the growth of a successful technology company in the financial sector. We know that looking for a new role can be both exciting and time-consuming, and we truly appreciate your effort.

Send us your CV and tell us why you’d like to join our team!

Frontend Developer (m/f/d)

Our stack:

Our frontend is powered by React and Typescript, communicates via Grpc-Web and REST to our microservices written in Golang. We carefully store customers data in Postgresql and deploy to Kubernetes powered by Google Cloud. We keep our code in Gitlab and follow continuous delivery with help of Gitlab CI. Our work is managed in Jira and Confluence. We are opened to edge technologies and moving towards Terraform and Cypress.

You will enjoy:

  • Creating beautiful and fast code that improves our code base in meaningful ways
  • Collaborating with other frontend engineers and backend team
  • Freedom to make your own decisions (we trust our employees and invest in their success) 
  • Learning the latest front end technologies  and environment where learning is paramount
  • Cross code-reviews and brainstorming on architecture
  • Fix mistakes quickly and take time to solve difficult problems well

What is important for success in this role:

  • Proficiency in React or at least AngularJS
  • Expertise in Typescript or at least modern Javascript along with CSS (SASS or LESS)
  • Ability to identify spaghetti code and make suggestions on improvements
  • Understanding basic Git and Jira workflows
  • You come not only with questions, but also with suggestions and improvements
  • A commitment and drive for quality, technical excellence and results
  • Fluent in English (German would be a nice addition)

What would be nice to have on top:

  • A feeling for great user experience
  • Interest in financial and/or blockchain domain
  • Knowledge in unit and ent-to-end testing

Benefits of working with us:

  • The result counts! We pursue a flexible working time
  • Work from home or enjoy our office in the Frankfurt city center
  • Educational budget
  • 30 day of paid vacation
  • Apple equipment
  • Free German language courses
  • Fitness Membership

We offer an outstanding opportunity for a highly motivated individual to participate in the growth of a successful technology company in the financial sector. We know that looking for a new role can be both exciting and time-consuming, and we truly appreciate your effort.

Send us your CV and tell us why you’d like to join our team!

Solidity Developer – Sustainability (m/f/d)

Your tasks:

We are looking for bright developers with a high motivation to strive in a technology startup and the high motivation to work within trading and crypto assets. You will work in a highly motivated team to establish our token engine, the flagship product of Blocksize Capital. Our mission is to connect digital assets. Your task will be to implement Ethereum smart contracts via Solidity in the realm of sustainability and CO2 tokenization.

Tech skills:

  • Proficiency with Golang or any other strongly typed programming language like Java/C#/Rust/C++
  • Basic experience with Postgres or MySQL
  • Ability to identify spaghetti code and make suggestions on improvements
  • Understanding basic Git and Jira workflows
  • You come not only with questions, but also with suggestions and improvements
  • A commitment and drive for quality, technical excellence and results
  • Fluent in English (German would be a nice addition)

Highly preferable:

  • Docker and Kubernetes skills
  • IPFS skills
  • Preferrable:
  • Cloud Services skills

Soft skills:

  • Result-oriented, structured, implementation-driven and willing to embrace challenges
  • You are a team player and know agile approaches
  • Self-reliant in development and implementation as well as in ongoing operations and support of innovative ideas

Your chances:

  • The result counts! We pursue a flexible working time
  • Work from home or enjoy our office in the Frankfurt city center
  • Educational budget
  • 30 day of paid vacation
  • Apple equipment
  • Free German language courses
  • Fitness Membership

We offer an outstanding opportunity for a highly motivated individual to participate in the growth of a successful technology company in the financial sector. We know that looking for a new role can be both exciting and time-consuming, and we truly appreciate your effort.

Send us your CV and tell us why you’d like to join our team!

Product Owner (m/f/d)

We seek an experienced Product Owner to take over responsibility for our long-term product roadmap and vision. We have ambitious plans and a running start in a market with momentum – combining sustainability with blockchain. As Product Owner, you will take care of all requirements, work at the interface to our clients, and be part of the scrum development team. The ideal candidate has experience as Product Manager or Product Owner in the financial industry and has good knowledge about Blockchain, especially Ethereum and SaaS solutions.

Your role briefly explained:

  • Develop a long-term Product Vision and Roadmap.
  • Be in charge of the Verity Product Backlog.
  • Guide the Scrum Team with regard to all feature-related questions and facilitate the development process as Product Owner.
  • Engage during the day-to-day work with the developers inside the team and remove impediments.
  • Collaborate closely with our clients to identify improvements of our solution and phase them into the Product Backlog.
  • Continuously improve the skills and competencies in the team through training and knowledge sharing.
  • Stay up to date with the crypto and DLT regulatory landscapes and show capacity to implement critical changes in our products at top speed.

Your profile:

  • You hold a university title degree in a relevant field and understand technological subjects well.
  • You have 3+ years of experience in Product Management, creating and shipping customer-centric products, and working with cross-functional teams.
  • You have experience working with financial products and DLT and are knowledgeable in the different stages of their development cycle.
  • You are well-acquainted with the Blockchain industry and current local landscape.
  • A track record with Tokenization products and services is a big plus.
  • You have superb English / German verbal and written communication skills.
  • You have a hands-on mentality and entrepreneurial mindset; you know how to roll up your sleeves to deliver alongside your team.
  • Interest in financial topics, DLT, and blockchain technology.
  • Agility and self-organization.
  • Willingness to quickly learn new topics within a short period.
  • Result orientation, conceptual and analytical thinking, and acting.

Your Chances:

  • Become part of a young and successful company with an outstanding track record in the field of Tokenization.
  • Deal with topics that are fun, interesting, and challenging.
  • Leave your Footprint because your ideas are important to us.
  • The result counts! We pursue a flexible working time and workplace model (home office).
  • Support as you need it: you have an experienced mentor at your side.
  • Our claim is always to know more than the others: Continuous and qualitatively unique further training is a “must” for every employee.
  • Flexible Working Times.
  • Excellent infrastructure (Apple Equipment, Coursera, Gym, etc.).
  • Employee Stock Ownership program.

Contact

Please send your application to denise@blocksize-capital.de

We are looking forward to welcoming you to Blocksize Capital, as part of the Verity Tracking team.

Send us your CV and tell us why you’d like to join our team!

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