Crypto-savvy developers are scarce these days. Blockchain startups and protocols are fighting to get more engineers on board and train them – an even more difficult undertaking in a world where developing Ethereum versus Solana versus Polkadot versus another blockchain requires completely different programming skills.
London, UK-based startup code clubFounded in 2020, it trained 15,000 developers through its programming last year alone, CEO and co-founder Anthony Beaumont told businesstraverse.com in an interview.
Encode hosts workshops, bootcamps and hackathons both online and in person around the world with the aim of providing a recruiting pipeline for its long-term partners, which it claims includes some of the most active blockchain protocols – Avalanche, Polkadot, Solana and Polygon, to to name a few. The company is chain independent in its training and teaches a wide variety of programming languages applicable to crypto, including Solidity and Rust, Beaumont said.
The Encode Club team. Image Credits: code club
Encode’s partners pay the company to hire people directly from the talent pool, Beaumont said. Some also sponsor events that Encode organizes and runs. The startup, which employs 15 people, made $2 million in revenue last year, primarily through six- or seven-figure recruiting deals with companies in web3, Beaumont said.
Over 60 Venture Funded Blockchain Startups, Including NFT Project 0xmons and Paradigm supported DeFi protocol Euler Finance, have had their founders participate in Encode’s programs. Although the company is profitable, Beaumont says, it has just raised $5 million in seed money from investors.
Lemniscap and Galaxy Digital led the way alongside Dragonfly Ventures, Folius Ventures, not3Lau Capital, Ascensive Assets and angel investors including SolBigBrain, Stefan George of Gnosis, Jordan and Kain Warwick of Synthetix, Anton Bukov of 1inch and Jason Choi, according to Encode.
“We’ve honestly just been overwhelmed by the demand for our services, from doing events with us, training developers, hackathons and boot camps. Recruitment is very important to us these days, we just want to scale up as quickly as possible, and fundraising was the way to do that,” Beaumont said.
More than half of the participants in Encode’s coding bootcamps, most of whom are experienced web2 programmers who want to run in web3, get jobs in crypto upon completion, Beaumont estimates. Unlike, Insider reported that leading coding bootcamp Lambda School has a placement rate of 30% – well below what the company officially advertises.
Encode Club CEO and Co-Founder Anthony Beaumont. Image Credits: code club
Part of Encode’s success, Beaumont said, is due to the fact that it screens potential boot camp participants to ensure the students are well-equipped to take advantage of its programming.
“We do a kind of in-depth interview and filtering process, despite the scale [of the program]Beaumont said.
After the program, the Encode team will continue to monitor student results so it can be effective in matching students with job openings, Beaumont added.
“If you go through our program, we kind of have your genome map. We’ve tracked every event you’ve ever done. We’ll know everything about you, from your GitHub to your LinkedIn to every hackathon project you’ve ever done, so we can really spot talents, give them the attention they need, and make sure they’re having a good time and they’re going on to achieve great things,” Beaumont said.
