The Web3 industry is developing rapidly, and high-paying jobs are emerging in an endless stream, but risks should not be ignored. The decentralized, remote collaborative work model, coupled with the imperfect industry supervision, makes it easier for job seekers to fall into the dilemma of information asymmetry. Some companies lack transparency, and even have problems such as exaggerated financing, false propaganda, and unstable capital chain, which leads to many job seekers finding out that they have been deceived after joining the company, and even becoming the "scapegoat" of the scam.
More importantly, Web3 companies often cannot verify their backgrounds through traditional methods such as Qichacha and Baidu search. Remote work and anonymous team models also make it more difficult for job seekers to judge the authenticity of the project. To this end, TinTinLand has compiled a Web3 job search avoidance guide to reveal the common routines of unreliable teams and provide practical company research methods to help you avoid traps and find a reliable job.
Common pitfalls in Web3 job hunting: How many have you encountered?
The temptation of “high salary + token dividends”
The salaries offered by many Web3 companies seem attractive, even far higher than the industry level, but when you inquire about the salary structure in depth, you will find that most of the salary is paid in the form of tokens, and the legal currency portion is pitifully small. Companies usually use "motivating employees to build together" to beautify this model, making you feel that you are part of the long-term development of the project.
The real situation may be: the liquidity of the tokens issued by the project is extremely poor, the market value fluctuates violently, and the "equity incentives" that have been worked hard for a year may be wiped out in a market fluctuation; some tokens have a long lock-up period, which may take three years or even longer to unlock, and may be directly invalidated after leaving the company; in addition, some projects have no stable source of income at all, and issuing tokens is just to attract more employees and maintain market enthusiasm. Once the capital chain is broken, the company may be directly dissolved, and the tokens in the hands of employees will be worthless.
Claiming to be a "Web3 pioneer project", but actually has no product
The white papers of such projects are often filled with industry buzzwords and grand visions, promising to solve the blockchain trilemma or revolutionary user experience, but the actual products always remain at the minimum viable product stage. Despite the hype of technological innovation and transparency, these projects are often reluctant to open source their core codes, and their GitHub homepages may be empty. Some projects even just fork other people's code, change the logo, and start to promote themselves.
In addition, many products only exist in PPTs, but the actual products are hard to find, the user experience is extremely poor, and no one maintains them later. What’s more frightening is that after the development team completes the development, they are directly laid off, and the subsequent operations rely entirely on marketing hype, without paying any attention to user feedback. After completing the mainnet launch or reaching the financing target, many projects have significantly reduced development activities, and the update frequency has changed from weekly to quarterly or even completely stagnant. User data is mostly directed and performed by robots or team members.
The illusion of freedom in remote work
Some Web3 companies like to advertise "decentralized teams" and "all employees work remotely" to create a flexible and free working atmosphere. But when you actually join the company, you may find that this is not the remote work you imagined, but a complete "free-range management".
Without clear goals and processes, team members do their own things, project progress is chaotic, and there may not even be a clear core business. In addition, the uneven distribution of time zones leads to extremely low communication efficiency. Meetings are often required in the early morning, and tasks must be continued during the day, and working hours become boundless. Some companies lack trust in remote employees and require them to regularly upload screenshots of screen usage time, or even use some tools to monitor working hours, turning the original free work into an invisible oppression.
Lack of security awareness may lead to hackers taking over at any time
Some Web3 projects invest very little in security and only care about launching products quickly, resulting in frequent vulnerabilities. Many temporary technical solutions were originally emergency measures, but they eventually became long-term solutions, posing huge security risks. The temporary patches at the beginning became a breakthrough for hackers to attack, resulting in the entire project being breached. At the same time, many projects directly test updates in the production environment, lack a complete testing process and environment, and the key infrastructure is maintained by a single point, and the backup mechanism is not sound.
What’s more serious is that some projects’ codes have not been audited at all, and even the most basic contract vulnerabilities have not been fixed before they are directly launched on the mainnet. Even more dangerous is that some project founders operate under pseudonyms and conceal their past involvement in failed or fraudulent projects. Investors and employees have no way of knowing their true backgrounds, and are at risk of the founding team running away with the funds at any time.
Legal and policy risks: employees may become “accomplices”
The compliance requirements of the Web3 industry are becoming increasingly stringent, but many companies still have a fluke mentality and even test the edge of the legal red line. When looking for a job, you may see that companies are engaging in gray operations in areas with strict supervision, such as unlicensed exchanges, Ponzi schemes, and even disguised fraud.
Some job seekers were offered positions such as "community operations" or "user growth" before joining the company, but after joining the company, they found that their actual work was to guide users to invest in suspicious projects or assist in the illegal transfer of funds. Many employees do not know that even if they are only responsible for technical development or marketing, they may face legal liability when the project is deemed illegal. Once something goes wrong, company executives have often transferred assets and disappeared, while the remaining employees have to face user complaints, law enforcement investigations and even criminal charges, becoming scapegoats for the entire scam.
How to conduct a comprehensive survey of the Web3 team?
Company basic information investigation
If the company advertises that it has a financing record, it needs to be verified. You can check relevant information on platforms such as Crunchbase, PitchBook, Rootdata, etc. If the investor is a leading institution such as a16z or Sequoia Capital, it can be considered a plus. In addition, cross-verification of information is equally important - visit the official website of the investor to see if the project is listed. You can also find relevant news reports through authoritative media such as CoinDesk, The Block, Decrypt, etc. Chinese-speaking media can refer to Golden Finance, Rhythm, PA News, Foresight News, and Planet Daily.
If the company is a public chain or DeFi project, you can check its market ranking through data websites such as CoinMarketCap and DefiLlama. Top-ranked projects usually have a certain degree of market recognition, while projects that are ranked too low or lack data may need further investigation of their credibility.
Official websites and white papers are also important channels for verifying the reliability of a company. Check whether the project has a clear product roadmap and whether it provides feasible technology and market implementation plans. If the official website is poorly designed, the white paper is empty, or lacks specific implementation details, you need to be vigilant.
Comprehensive team background review
Search for team members on the official website, LinkedIn, and Twitter to verify whether they have a real Web3 background and whether they have participated in mature blockchain projects. You can check their career resumes on LinkedIn to see if their career paths are connected reasonably. If team members’ accounts were registered at a concentrated time, their resumes are vague (such as only being marked as “blockchain expert” but without specific projects), or all use cartoon avatars and have no social interactions, you need to doubt the authenticity of the team. It is recommended to use Google Image Search to reverse search the source of the avatars to exclude false identities that steal online pictures.
Active Web3 founders often have continuous output on platforms such as Twitter and Mirror. You can search the names of founders and team members on Google or Twitter to observe whether their social interactions are real. If the account has a high number of followers but a very low interaction rate (such as only a single-digit forwarding of 100,000 followers), or suddenly registers a large number of related accounts to intensively forward project information, it may be fake traffic controlled by robots. In addition, if team members or founders have participated in AMA or public speeches, you can compare whether the technical details are consistent to avoid "packaged" leaders.
Community activity and market reputation
The characteristic of real user communities is diversified discussions. You can join the project's Telegram, Discord or Twitter community to observe whether the discussion content is real, whether anyone complains about wage arrears, slow project progress and other issues. Pay attention to whether the official actively responds to user questions, especially when it comes to key issues, whether they deliberately avoid them. If the project's Twitter account has hundreds of thousands of followers, but each tweet has only a few dozen views, or the Telegram group has many members but is full of robots flooding the forum, it may just be surface popularity.
You can also search for keywords such as "project name + scam" and "rug pull" on Twitter to view real user complaint cases (such as tokens cannot be withdrawn, etc.). At the same time, pay attention to KOL evaluations: high-quality projects are often spontaneously recommended by technical bloggers, while Ponzi projects rely more on paid promotion. For operating companies, you can extend to platforms such as Maimai, Xiaohongshu, and Glassdoor to check employee evaluations. If there are descriptions such as "delayed salary payment" and "frequent changes in senior management", you need to carefully assess the risks.
Product and technology strength assessment
If it is a technical project, GitHub activity is an important indicator. After entering the warehouse, you need to check three points: first, the frequency of code submission. Healthy projects usually have several commit records per week, rather than uploading thousands of lines of code in half a year; second, the authenticity of the developer account. The main contributors should have a history of cross-project collaboration. If all submitters are new accounts with 0 followers, they may be forged; third, community interaction, check whether there is user feedback and official repair records in the Issue area. Special attention should be paid to projects that are completely closed source and refuse third-party audits. The risk of running away is extremely high.
Product progress is another important indicator. If a project has been in the "testnet stage" for a long time but has no clear mainnet launch time, or the demonstration video is only a special effects animation without actual interaction, its technical feasibility should be questioned. If you have a technical background, you can directly check the code quality to see if there are obvious vulnerabilities or suspicious functions. You can also search the project name + audit keyword directly on Google or Twitter. Generally, the audit will be announced after completion. If the search does not produce any results, you should pay special attention.
Operating Model and Compliance
There are many gray areas in the Web3 industry, and legal risks must be eliminated first. Determine whether the project involves non-compliant exchanges, Ponzi schemes, money laundering or pyramid schemes. For example, if the exchange does not have a legal license in a country or region with strict supervision, or does not implement KYC/AML (anti-money laundering compliance measures), there may be a higher risk. Or the team community is full of rhetoric such as "guaranteed capital and high returns", so you need to be wary of its legality. You can use Whois to check the registration time of the official website domain name. If it was established within three months and the registration information is hidden, you need to be vigilant.
Advanced researchers can go deep into the contract code to check for backdoor codes and check for the risk of running away. If the project's contract allows the development team to issue or transfer user funds at will, or the transfer tax setting is abnormal, or the team can upgrade the contract logic at any time, it is often a sign of a fraudulent project.
Interview strategy: key questions and risk identification
Based on the background investigation, the interview is a key step to further verify the reliability of the company. In addition to the regular technical interview and HR communication, you can judge whether the company is worth joining by asking the following questions and observing points.
Key questions:
What percentage of the salary is in tokens? Is there a stable fiat currency portion?
What is the core technology of the project? What are its advantages compared with competing products?
Are there users for the existing product?
How many full-time employees does the company have? Are the core members working on the project long-term?
What is the company's financing situation? Are there any publicly disclosed investment institutions?
Warning signs:
The company avoided answering the details of salary payment, or emphasized the "team building spirit" but did not promise stable income.
The interviewer is unable to clearly explain the core points of the technology, or can only talk about the industry vision in vain, especially the CTO cannot talk about the specific technical details.
The interviewer was vague about the company's operations and would not even tell us how many full-time employees the company had.
The company claims to have raised tens of millions of dollars in financing, but no official disclosure information can be found.
Conclusion
In the fast-growing but uncertain Web3 industry, job seekers need to maintain a high level of vigilance and critical thinking. Don't be fooled by high salaries, token incentives, and grand visions, but conduct systematic research to comprehensively evaluate the company's technical strength, team background, development prospects, and compliance. I wish everyone can join a high-quality team with a real technical core and long-term development vision!
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