US Blockchain Engineers Earning as Much as AI Specialists

The fast-growing blockchain technology sector has created a high demand for talent and this has consequently resulted in blockchain engineers being among the best-remunerated in the tech sector. According to CNBC, the average pay for blockchain engineers in the United States is between US$150,000 and US$175,000 making it comparable to what developers who specialize in another high-demand field, artificial intelligence, make. The two fields now currently offer the highest-earning specialized engineering roles. Typical software engineers make an average of US$135,000.

This comes at a time when the job postings requiring blockchain technology skills have increased dramatically. For instance, Hired, a San Francisco, California-based tech sector recruitment firm which provided CNBC with the salary stats in the tech sector, has seen a 400% increase in the job postings seeking employees with blockchain technology skills since late last year.

“There’s a ton of demand for blockchain. Software engineers are in very short supply, but this is even more acute and that’s why salaries are even higher,” Hired’s CEO, Mehul Patel, told the business news TV channel.

This is similar to a finding by jobs site Glassdoor which saw job listings related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies increase by 300% in August 2018 compared to the same period last year. In the United States, most of the blockchain-related jobs are located in New York City (24%) and San Francisco (21%). Outside the United States the top-five cities with the highest number of blockchain-related job openings were London (16%), Singapore (7%), Toronto (7%), Hong Kong (6%) and Berlin (4%).