Blockchain has the primary purpose of decentralizing everything from organizations and decisions to tokens and assets. Today, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations or DAOs are not such a new concept. At the beginning of 2022, the market capitalization of DAOs was $21 billion, with 4,227 DAOs making up the ecosystem.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) experts speculate that the market will grow even more in a few years. Therefore, it may be a perfect time to create or join a DAO before it experiences an expansion and everyone else takes advantage of it.
As a company that wants to build DAOs, you'll first need to hire DAO developers to help you put your plans into action. Having an experienced and knowledgeable workforce is essential to succeed in the new market. In this guide, you'll find everything you need to know about the recruitment process.
DAO Meaning
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations or DAOs stands for a community based on code rather than any central entity like a company, government, or foundation body. It's an internet-native business managed and owned by all of its members.
DAOs also comprise treasuries that no one can access without the whole group's approval. The members of the DAO can vote and submit proposals to the organization.
The main difference between a DAO and a traditional organization is that the former does not have a CEO, CFO, or other executive roles. All members are equally involved in the operationality of the organization.
Here are some ways in which DAOs differ from conventional organizations:
- Hierarchy: Traditional organizations are typically hierarchical, with a clear chain of command. In DAOs, there is no such hierarchy since everyone is on the same level and the system is democratized.
- Leadership: In DAOs, leadership comes from the community and not from an individual or small group of people. That's contrary to conventional organizations, where executives have more control over the business.
- Automatic Handling: The handling of services in DAOs, such as fund distribution for philanthropic purposes, is fully automated. Meanwhile, traditional organizations require human involvement, which often brings manipulation and bias.
- Transparency: There's little to no transparency in traditional organizations as leadership activities are mostly private. On the other hand, DAOs offer a high level of transparency as all activity in the organization is public.
Examples of DAOs
DAOs can be any organization type, including a non-profit and a for-profit. The only requirement is that the group is decentralized and automated. Here are some examples:
- Charity: A DAO charity accepts donations and members from all over the world. The members collectively decide how the donations will get spent.
- Ventures: In a DAO venture fund, members pool investment capital and vote on which startups will receive funding.
- Cryptocurrency: A DAO could be a cryptocurrency managed by the users. An example in this regard is DASH.
Top 5 Blockchains Used by DAO Developers and the Skills Needed
When you hire DAO creators, you need to make sure you're choosing people who have the required skills to work on blockchains of your choice. Here are some blockchains commonly used by DAO developers and the DAO development skills needed for each one.
Avalanche (AVAX)
Avalanche is a blockchain perfect for DAO development since it can run smart contracts. In addition, the blockchain aims to lower transaction costs, increase security, ensure faster transactions, and remain eco-friendly.
Avalanche is designed to solve two main problems that older blockchains exhibit: high fees and congestion. Ethereum, although one of the most commonly used blockchains in the DeFi space, allows a limited number of transactions per second. Meanwhile, Avalanche can process 6,500 transactions in a second, enabling sub-second finality. It also has lower gas fees, making it more affordable than other blockchains for DAO creation.
Examples
Many DAOs use Avalanche due to its scalability, affordability, and speed. Here are some of them:
- SnowbankDAO: The DAO in question is an SB token-based reserve currency built on the Avalanche Network. Several assets, such as SB-AVAX LP Tokens, back every SB token in the treasury, therefore, giving it value.
- TimeDAO: This organization maintains and provides time-locking solutions for dApps. These apps, called TimeApps, are built on the TimeDAO platform and use the TIME token as their native currency.
- Wonderland: As a recovery currency protocol, Wonderland is built to create a policy-controlled currency system on the TIME token.
Required Tech Skills
Developers who use the Avalanche Network must have specific DAO programming skills.
- Solidity: The most popular programming language for developing smart contracts is Solidity. We're talking about a statically typed, object-oriented, and high-level language that enables developers to create complex DAOs.
- TypeScript: This is a superset of JavaScript that enables developers to write type-safe code. TypeScript often gets used with the AngularJS framework for web development.
Learn More: Hire Web3 Developers: Salary, Skills and More
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts. These contracts are written in programming languages and can help create DAOs.
Ethereum's popularity as a blockchain for DAO development is due to its large community, extensive documentation, and wide range of toolkits. In addition, Ethereum offers many features, such as:
- Own Consensus: Ethereum's consensus is established and well-distributed, making it trustworthy for organizations.
- No Modifications: Once created, no one can change the smart contract code on Ethereum, which ensures that the DAO runs by the initially established rules.
- Funds: Smart contracts on Ethereum can receive and send funds. In the absence of this feature, you would have to use an intermediary for fund management.
Examples
Since Ethereum is a veteran in the blockchain space, many DAOs get built on it. Let's take a look at some of them:
- Uniswap: A decentralized exchange protocol that allows users to swap cryptocurrencies without a third party is Uniswap. Users don't have to pay platform changes when exchanging tokens since Uniswap functions for public welfare.
- Maker: This is a decentralized platform that anyone can use to create Dai, a collateral-backed stable coin. Essentially, MakerDAO is designed to make the crypto economy somewhat stable.
- Curve DAO: An Ethereum-based exchange liquidity pool named Curve uses AMM or automated market maker for liquidity management. Meanwhile, CRV is the organization's governance token.
Required Tech Skills
One of the essential DAO development skills needed for using Ethereum is familiarity with Solidity. Developers must have a good grasp of this statically typed and high-level programming language to write smart contracts on Ethereum. They should also have experience with the Truffle Framework and the Geth client.
The Truffle Framework is used for automated testing, debugging, and deploying smart contracts. Meanwhile, Geth is a Go-based Ethereum client that lets developers interact with the Ethereum network.
Learn More: Ethereum developers: All you need to know
Solana (SOL)
Solana has quickly become an alternative to Ethereum for creating NFTs and DAOs due to its cheaper and faster transactions. The blockchain uses a Proof of History (PoH) concept to bypass the need for mining and achieve quicker transaction speeds.
Theoretically, Solana processes 65,000 transactions per second, much higher than the 15 TPS of Ethereum. Additionally, the platform has lower gas fees, allowing cheaper DAO development.
Examples
Since Solana is ideal for NFTs and DAOs, there are many examples of each on the platform. Some DAOs include:
- Mango DAO: Mango is a decentralized trading platform that allows users to benefit from up to 5x leverage and enjoy low transaction costs and impressively fast network speed. Users can earn interest on their margin positions or deposits and trade their assets at near-zero fees.
- Serum: Being a decentralized exchange, Serum also offers fast and low-cost transactions associated with Solana. What sets Serum apart from some other platforms is its cross-chain support. You can trade tokens from other platforms with it, including Polkadot and Ethereum, too.
Required Tech Skills
When you hire DAO makers to work on Solana, they should have skills such as:
- Rust: This is a system programming language that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It has a strong focus on safety, making it perfect for creating low-level systems software.
- C++: A powerful object-oriented language such as C++ gets used to create some of the most popular software in the world. With its versatility and wide range of features, it's no wonder that C++ is popular for game and DAO development.
Tezos (XTZ)
Tezos is a token-linked blockchain whose working principle is not based on mining the token, Tez. Instead, token holders get rewarded for participating in the platform's proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
Similar to Ethereum, Tezos can also be used to make smart contracts. The developers say that 'Tezos' is a Greek word that means smart contract. However, the platform differs from Ethereum because it lets participants control the network's rules. Tezos aims to be a constantly evolving platform since flexibility is an essential component of the network.
Examples
Like other blockchains mentioned above, there are some DAOs associated with Tezos:
- Homebase: This is a Tezos-based project. It allows creating DAOs on the blockchain with a smart contract framework named BaseDAO. Since Homebase has an intuitive user interface, it lets practically anyone create a DAO in a few steps. The participants of the DAO also get a dashboard where they can vote on proposals to upgrade or modify the smart contracts.
- Kolibri DAO: Being a smart contact, the Kolibri DAO will govern and oversee the Kolibri Protocol backed by kDAO, a FA1.2 governance token. The Kolibri Protocol aims to ensure that no entity controls the protocol unilaterally.
Required Tech Skills
Although most DAO developers are familiar with Solana and Ethereum, only a few understand how to use Tezos. Thus, when you hire DAO creators to work on Tezos, look for the following skills:
- LIGO: This is a high-level and statically-typed language used to write smart contracts on Tezos. The developer you hire should be familiar with the rules and usage of LIGO.
- Michelson: The compilation of LIGO goes down to Michelson, a domain-specific programming language developers use to write smart contracts on Tezos.
- SmartPy: Meanwhile, SmartPy is a platform to develop smart contracts for Tezos. Although SmartPy is highly intuitive, developers still need extensive prior experience using the platform.
Terra (LUNA)
Terra is a public blockchain that enables users to borrow and lend digital assets. It uses a unique algorithm to stabilize the prices of tokens on the network.
The team behind Terra has a strong belief that digital assets should be used as collateral to borrow money, as this would go a long way in accelerating the mass adoption of blockchain technology.
One thing that differentiates Terra from other blockchains is its two-token system. The first token, Luna, is used to stabilize the prices of digital assets on the network. The second token, Terra, gets used to pay for goods and services.
Examples
There are a few DAOs on the Terra blockchain:
- Leserve DAO: Leserve is a scalable and policy-controlled currency system governed by its holders. The token holders can control all aspects of the Leserve protocol, keeping it transparent and objective.
- Apollo DAO: With auto compounders, Apollo DAO provides liquidity and allows you to buy liquidity tokens and sell reward tokens in the same transaction.
Required Tech Skills
Since Terra is not as common as Ethereum, not all developers will know to use it. Here are some crucial DAO programming skills needed to work on Terra:
- Rust: This programming language gets used for writing smart contracts on Terra. Rust shows error messages and has extensive documentation along with an integrated package manager that makes it a suitable choice for writing smart contracts.
- Terrain: Developers can use Terrain with LocalTerra to develop, test, and debug smart contracts written in Rust. Terrain can simulate test transactions before deploying them on the main net.
- CosmWasm: As a WebAssembly runtime, CosmWasm enables developers to write smart contracts in Rust, JavaScript, and Python. CosmWasm is an intermediate programming language that facilitates the compilation of the developer's preferred language into a virtual machine.
Where to Find Makers for DAO Projects
When creating a DAO, you first need to develop smart contracts that will power it. Fortunately, DAO developers can help you, but you must ensure they are experienced and knowledgeable of the matter. Where do you find and hire such professionals? We have a couple of places to recommend.
DAO Vibes - DAO Job Board
DAO Vibes is a platform where developers find gigs and long-term jobs in the DeFi space, particularly DAO creation. It works like any other job board, and you can filter jobs by different hashtags, such as Solana, Solidity, marketing, operations, and more.
When posting jobs on DAO Vibes or similar job boards, it's essential to have a thorough strategy. You'll need a good job description, a detailed vetting process in place, and probably some skill tests. Scroll down to our hiring guidelines if you want to learn more details about this part of recruitment.
LinkedIn is another good place to hire DAO developers since it has a large pool of skilled professionals. You can explore this talent pool by using the LinkedIn search. With keywords such as "smart contracts'' or "Tezos," you can narrow your search to specific skills you seek. Since most applicants also list their previous accomplishments, projects, and references on LinkedIn, the selection process will be quick and easy.
Talent Marketplaces
When you hire DAO creators from job boards or LinkedIn, you have to handle everything from job descriptions to candidate vetting. If you don't have time and resources to do that, you may want to consider a talent marketplace.
As a service that gathers only the top-notch talent and pre-vets candidates, a talent marketplace is an excellent choice for anyone who wants to save time and money on the hiring process. A talent marketplace also takes over many pre- and post-recruitment responsibilities to make things more convenient for employers.
Revelo
If you want to hire remote developers for your DAO projects, we are here to support you. Revelo is a talent marketplace that connects tech companies in the US with pre-vetted remote workers from Latin America. We partner with you to help you achieve your hiring goals, providing you with the top talent and taking the recruitment burden off your back.
Are you interested in hearing more about our services? Contact us today or start your 14-day free trial and get all the details first-hand.
How to Hire a DAO Creator
If the concept of hiring a DAO developer is new to you, our tips can help you navigate the process. We listed things you can include in the job description post, your interviews, and the coding tests. Hopefully, our guidelines will support your hiring process and make it more efficient.
DAO Engineer Job Description Example
When writing a job description to post on any job board, you must include all the relevant information that interests the potential candidates. While you can add a few sections based on the scope of the job, some standard components of an attractive job description are:
- Job Title: An attractive job title is essential to catch the attention of top DAO developers. The title should be relevant to the position and include keywords related to the role. For instance, the job title for this example is Solana Smart Contract Engineer. When you specify the blockchain, as in this example, you don't get unnecessary applications from developers unfamiliar with the required platform.
- Company Details: DAO developers want to know everything about the company they'll be working for, especially the size, location, team, products and services, and customers. In this job description example, the company has also mentioned the three projects they're currently working on. If you want to hire DAO makers for projects in the pipeline, you should add details about the tasks in the job description.
- Job Requirements: This section should list the skills and qualifications required for the position. It's a good idea to list the preferred programming languages, such as Solidity, Rust, etc., that you're looking for in a DAO developer. You can also mention whether the job is remote or in-office, such as in this job description example.
- Compensation: If you have a salary range in mind, mention it in the job description. You can also list other benefits and perks you're offering, such as health insurance, flexible work hours, paid time off, and more. For example, in this Community Governance Manager job post, the company has specified a compensation range. They also mention that the developer can get paid in digital currency.
DAO Interview Questions
Hiring a DAO developer isn't exactly like recruiting a project manager or marketing specialist. You'll have to come up with relevant questions to gauge how suitable the applicant is for your company or project. Some of the questions you can ask are:
- What's your experience with blockchain technology? The question will help you understand the applicant's background and familiarity with blockchain.
- What do you think is the most significant aspect of DAO development? The answer to this question will give you some insights into the applicant's priorities and understanding of DAO development.
- What coding languages are you comfortable working with? If you prefer using a specific blockchain or programming language for your projects, you'll want to make sure the applicant is proficient in it.
- Have you ever worked on a project that involved a DAO? If so, please describe the role you played. When you ask this question, you might also request to see the applicant's former work to understand their expertise and skill level.
- Are you open to learning about new blockchains? If you want to train your recruits to use a new blockchain, such as Terra, you'll need someone ready to learn new things.
Coding Challenges
Nowadays, there are many online coding challenges that DAO developers and other professionals in the DeFi space take to hone their skills and test their knowledge. If you want to hire DAO developers with hands-on experience, you'll find them in coding challenges.
Therefore, when considering candidates for a position, ask them about their rating on coding challenges. If you want the developer to be proficient in Rust, it may help to know that a particular candidate participated or won Rust coding challenges. For Ethereum DAO development in your company, you'd want to hire developers who're experts at Solidity. Github has a list of coding challenges for Solidity developers that's worth checking out.
Final Words
As we expect DAO development to get more popular in the coming years, you may want to start building your team now. But before you hire DAO makers, you need to ensure they have the relevant skills, knowledge, and experience in a particular blockchain.
You can find and hire DAO developers on job boards, LinkedIn, or talent marketplaces. While other options require more effort and time, talent marketplaces, like Revelo, are a quick way to find vetted talent that possesses the DAO development skills specifically tailored to your company's needs.
If you have any additional questions about how to hire DAO developers, reach out to us. Revelo is happy to answer your inquiries and support your DAO journey.
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