The web3 awards
the 19 best web3 places to work in 2023
Thirdwork & Talent Protocol have teamed up to curate awards for the best places to work in web3 (2023 edition)
design + development by LOSINGMYEGO
ft. Le Murmure typeface published by Jérémy Landes
design + development by LOSINGMYEGO
ft. Le Murmure typeface published by Jérémy Landes
With our inaugural Web3 Awards, we’re putting a spotlight on the 19 Best Places To Work In Web3.
‍
Web3 is complicated. It’s ever evolving. But if you strip away the technology and the noise, you’ll find that organizations—from startups to DAOs—are still driven by people. And people interacting with each other is where working culture is formed.
Our goal at thirdwork is to help crypto and blockchain startups hire top-tier talent, from blockchain developers to product designers to crypto-native growth marketers.
From NFT projects to crypto compliance to white-label marketplaces, we’ve partnered with Talent Protocol to highlight some of the best teams in web3 and what makes them special. These awards serve as a beacon of recognition for amazing projects and an opportunity for builders worldwide to discover the best places to work in web3.
Best, Gavin
Founder @ Thirdwork
‍
Web3 is complicated. It’s ever evolving. But if you strip away the technology and the noise, you’ll find that organizations—from startups to DAOs—are still driven by people. And people interacting with each other is where working culture is formed.
Our goal at thirdwork is to help crypto and blockchain startups hire top-tier talent, from blockchain developers to product designers to crypto-native growth marketers.
From NFT projects to crypto compliance to white-label marketplaces, we’ve partnered with Talent Protocol to highlight some of the best teams in web3 and what makes them special. These awards serve as a beacon of recognition for amazing projects and an opportunity for builders worldwide to discover the best places to work in web3.
Best, Gavin
Founder @ Thirdwork
Doodles, a marquee NFT project, strikes a unique balance between its ethos of “reconnecting with our inner child” and its goal of disrupting the entertainment industry. Former Billboard president Julian Holguin is at the helm with a stacked cast of illustrators, NFT OGs, and celebrities behind him. Pharell Williams famously joined Doodles as “Chief Brand Officer” and is leading production on everything from music projects to animated films. Doodles has transcended what it means to be an NFT company, settling in uncharted territory that lies between tech, web3, entertainment, and pop culture (highlighted by appearances at both SXSW and Art Basel Miami).
Doodles recently raised $54 million in a round led by Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian. The company has hit over $500 million in sales and is performing well despite market conditions. With a welcoming and approachable brand and a mission to “inspire belief in the idea that anything is possible with the power of our imagination”, the Doodles team is growing. According to Linkedin, the team has grown nearly 70% over the past year, and they are hiring across creative, ops, product, marketing and more. You can see their open roles here.
Twitter
Doodles recently raised $54 million in a round led by Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian. The company has hit over $500 million in sales and is performing well despite market conditions. With a welcoming and approachable brand and a mission to “inspire belief in the idea that anything is possible with the power of our imagination”, the Doodles team is growing. According to Linkedin, the team has grown nearly 70% over the past year, and they are hiring across creative, ops, product, marketing and more. You can see their open roles here.
Doodles
Thirdweb, a developer focused web3 project, was founded in 2021 by Steven Barlett and Furqan Rydhan after the two became fed up with the difficulties of building on-chain applications. Fueled by frustration, Barlett and Rydhan set out to make launching a web3 company “as simple creating an e-commerce store on Shopify”. They have built and launched a suite of products that include SDKs, dashboards, out of the box UI features, decentralized logins, and more. Additionally, the company offers a collection of pre-written, fully audited smart contracts that can be deployed “with a single click”. Thirdweb contracts have been deployed over 200,000 times across chains like ETH, Polygon, Fantom, Arbitrum Optimism, Avalanche, and Solana.
Thirdweb had a successful bear market capital raise of $24 million at a $160 million valuation from leading VCs like Coinbase Ventures, Shopify, and Haun Ventures. Their seed round was raised in late 2021 and included Gary Vanyerchuck, Greg Isenberg, and Packy McCormick. Thirdweb’s headcount has grown 29% in the last six months bringing the total to 36 full time employees.
Twitter
Thirdweb had a successful bear market capital raise of $24 million at a $160 million valuation from leading VCs like Coinbase Ventures, Shopify, and Haun Ventures. Their seed round was raised in late 2021 and included Gary Vanyerchuck, Greg Isenberg, and Packy McCormick. Thirdweb’s headcount has grown 29% in the last six months bringing the total to 36 full time employees.
Thirdweb
Afterparty is a creator community platform that provides artists, creatives, and builders with web3 tools to engage with fans. The platform empowers creators to build and manage fan communities directly as apposed to hiring traditional firms that demand exorbitant sums for their services. Creators can use Afterparty to sell digital collectibles, host virtual meet ups, and build custom offerings. Afterparty also offers a ticketing service that provides a cost-effective option for selling tickets directly to fans. This type of disintermediation is central to the blockchain ethos and is a very exciting prospect for artists of all kinds.
The company is led by ex-Disney executive David Fields. Fields and his team raised a $3 million seed round in 2021 and recently raised another $4 million with names like Paris Hilton, Jason Calacanis, and Blockchain Ventures on the cap table.
‍Instagram
‍Twitter
The company is led by ex-Disney executive David Fields. Fields and his team raised a $3 million seed round in 2021 and recently raised another $4 million with names like Paris Hilton, Jason Calacanis, and Blockchain Ventures on the cap table.
‍Instagram
‍Twitter
Afterparty
Autograph
Autograph is a platform for celebrities and athletes to launch bespoke NFT projects for their fans. Tom Brady is a co-founder and celebrities like The Weeknd, Simone Biles, Tiger Woods and Rafael Nadal have launched collections. Autograph NFTs are often short snippets of famous moments from an athlete’s or celebrity's career. Holding an Autograph NFT can provide access to IRL meet ups, signed memorabilia, or tickets to games or shows.
With a co-founder like Tom Brady and a vision to “build the future of fandom”, it is no surprise that Autograph was able to raise $170 million from top VCs like Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins. The company has grown 97% in the last year and now has close to 130 employees. Autograph is currently hiring engineering and managerial roles.
‍Twitter
‍Instagram
With a co-founder like Tom Brady and a vision to “build the future of fandom”, it is no surprise that Autograph was able to raise $170 million from top VCs like Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins. The company has grown 97% in the last year and now has close to 130 employees. Autograph is currently hiring engineering and managerial roles.
‍Twitter
‍Instagram
With just a few clicks Mintbase allows you to create, mint, configure, and host NFTs on your own marketplace. The company caters specifically to the NEAR blockchain which has affordable fees for deploying contracts and minting NFTs. To learn more about how Mintbase works, watch CEO Nate Geier build a complete marketplace in just 10 minutes.
‍In April of 2022, Mintbase announced a $7.5 million raise including Coinbase Ventures, Libertus Capital, Sino Global Capital, Animoca Brands, Fundamental Labs, Figment, TRGC, and others. They have also partnered with the NEAR blockchain to offer $5m in grants for people building with Mintbase. The company is based in Lisbon, Portugal, and has 15 employees.
Twitter
‍In April of 2022, Mintbase announced a $7.5 million raise including Coinbase Ventures, Libertus Capital, Sino Global Capital, Animoca Brands, Fundamental Labs, Figment, TRGC, and others. They have also partnered with the NEAR blockchain to offer $5m in grants for people building with Mintbase. The company is based in Lisbon, Portugal, and has 15 employees.
Mintbase
Uniswap Labs launched the Uniswap exchange on the Ethereum mainnet in November of 2018. CEO Hayden Adams had been building the project for a year and announced its release to a mere 200 Twitter followers. Since this unremarkable launch, Uniswap has grown to be the paragon of decentralized exchanges. Adams was a pioneer of the “Automated Market Maker” which is an elegant exchange architecture designed specifically for cryptocurrencies. Uniswap’s model has been “forked” by countless teams (Sushiswap, Pancakeswap, etc.) but none have succeeded in dethroning the leader. The Uniswap exchange has processed over a trillion dollars in crypto trading and remains one of the most talked about innovations in all of web3.
Since launch, Uniswap has deployed two new and improved versions of the exchange, a token (UNI), and a decentralized NFT exchange that allows users to buy, sell, and swap NFTs. The project is relentlessly dedicated to an ethos of decentralization, self-soverignty, and transparency. Uniswap Labs has grown 147% in the last year and has 131 employees. They are hiring for roles ranging from engineering to research to community management.
‍Twitter
Since launch, Uniswap has deployed two new and improved versions of the exchange, a token (UNI), and a decentralized NFT exchange that allows users to buy, sell, and swap NFTs. The project is relentlessly dedicated to an ethos of decentralization, self-soverignty, and transparency. Uniswap Labs has grown 147% in the last year and has 131 employees. They are hiring for roles ranging from engineering to research to community management.
‍Twitter
Uniswap Labs
Notabene is a company built to tackle the little-known but very important Travel Rule. The Travel Rule stipulates that any crypto transaction that exceeds a specific threshold must be accompanied by the personal information of the customer. The travel rule was introduced by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a group created by the G7 to put an end to international money laundering and terrorist financing. Notabene enables institutions to set data-sharing criteria with counterparties to ensure total compliance with the Travel Rule. Blue chip crypto firms like Bitstamp, Luno, Crypto.com, and Bitso have implemented Notabene into their platform and many other exchanges plan to follow.
The lack of regulatory clarity in the digital assets space makes compliance a particularly nuanced and challenging task for existing crypto firms and serves as a barrier to entry for many institutions. By demystifying compliance, projects like Notabene are helping drive adoption at the enterprise level. Notabene recently raised $10.2 million at a $45 million valuation from F-Prime Capital and Jump Capital.
‍Twitter
The lack of regulatory clarity in the digital assets space makes compliance a particularly nuanced and challenging task for existing crypto firms and serves as a barrier to entry for many institutions. By demystifying compliance, projects like Notabene are helping drive adoption at the enterprise level. Notabene recently raised $10.2 million at a $45 million valuation from F-Prime Capital and Jump Capital.
‍Twitter
Notabene
Magic Eden is the premier NFT marketplace on Solana. The project was launched in 2021 by  group of four engineers with who boast highly technical backgrounds at firms like Uber (self driving), Google, Meta AI, FTX, and dYdX. Magic Eden allows users to mint, trade, sell, and manage NFTs and charges a very low fee on all transactions. Magic Eden enables native communication between NFT producers, helping cultivate a strong community of aficionados. Over 10,000 NFT collections, including 300 launchpad projects, are live on Magic Eden and the marketplace processes millions of dollars of NFT transactions weekly.
Magic Edens stated purpose is to facilitate “mass adoption of NFTs”. To reach these ends, Magic Eden recently launched Eden Games, a place for all Solona gaming projects to host their NFTs and engage with users in a variety of ways. Additionally, Magic Eden plans to build products for the Ethereum and other blockchains in the coming years. In June of 2021 the company reached Unicorn status by raising $130 million at a $1.6 billion valuation. They are currently hiring engineers and product people.
‍Twitter
Magic Edens stated purpose is to facilitate “mass adoption of NFTs”. To reach these ends, Magic Eden recently launched Eden Games, a place for all Solona gaming projects to host their NFTs and engage with users in a variety of ways. Additionally, Magic Eden plans to build products for the Ethereum and other blockchains in the coming years. In June of 2021 the company reached Unicorn status by raising $130 million at a $1.6 billion valuation. They are currently hiring engineers and product people.
‍Twitter
Magic Eden
Phantom is the leading non-custodial wallet for Solana. Phantom wallets allow users to send, receive, and swap crypto, on/off ramp fiat, view transaction history, and monitor NFTs. The project is dedicated to easing the on-chain experience by providing an intuitive and snappy UX. Phantom is available as both a browser extension and a mobile application and is often equated to be the “Metamask of Solana”. In late November, 2022, Phantom announced that it would be launching compatibility with ETH and Polygon. This marks a large step towards building omni-chain competition between top wallet providers.
Phantom’s series B of $109 million at a $1.2 billion valuation (Unicorn) was led by Paradigm and the wallet now commands 90% of the market share on Solana. Phantom has demonstrated meteoric growth from a quiet launch in April of 2021 to over 2 million monthly active users in late 2022. Phantom is hiring roles including Front and Backend engineers and a head of people. Learn more here.
‍Twitter
Phantom’s series B of $109 million at a $1.2 billion valuation (Unicorn) was led by Paradigm and the wallet now commands 90% of the market share on Solana. Phantom has demonstrated meteoric growth from a quiet launch in April of 2021 to over 2 million monthly active users in late 2022. Phantom is hiring roles including Front and Backend engineers and a head of people. Learn more here.
‍Twitter
Phantom
RTFKT (pronounced “Artefact”) is arguably the most esteemed digital fashion brand that exists today. The company was founded in 2020 by Benoit Pagotto, Chris Le, and Steven Vasilev and is described as “an eclectic, future-focused, creator-led organization” that uses “the latest in game engines, NFTs, blockchain authentication and augmented reality, combined with design and manufacturing expertise to create unique experiences with phygital fashion, sneakers, and digital artifacts.” The project gained mass popularity amongst the sneakerhead/fashion community and leveraged its hype into an acquisition by Nike. Nike’s purchase of RTFKT marked a monumental milestone for NFTs, fashion, and crypto at large.
RTFKT raised an $8 million dollar seed round in 2021, and as recently as a few months ago was interested in hiring roles from Unreal Engine devs to talent management.
‍Twitter
RTFKT raised an $8 million dollar seed round in 2021, and as recently as a few months ago was interested in hiring roles from Unreal Engine devs to talent management.
‍Twitter
RTFKT
Unstoppable Domains builds domain names that are attached to the Ethereum blockchain. Instead of traditional public key addresses which are difficult to memorize (42 randomized character strings), Unstoppable Domains enables users to have a customized URL to represent an on-chain account. For example, Alice.crypto could be used to represent a person or brand named Alice. There have been over 2.9 million Unstoppable Domains registered to date and their popularity amongst the Ethereum community continues to rise.
Unstoppable Domains was founded in 2018 by Mathew Gould and Bogdan Gusiev. The mission of Unstoppable Domains is to bring a web2-like feature, domains, to the web3 world. Investors like Naval Ravikant, Protocol Labs, and Coinbase Ventures participated in a $1.7 million dollar series A in September of 2021. They are currently hiring developers and engineers (including an experienced reliability engineer)
‍Twitter
Unstoppable Domains was founded in 2018 by Mathew Gould and Bogdan Gusiev. The mission of Unstoppable Domains is to bring a web2-like feature, domains, to the web3 world. Investors like Naval Ravikant, Protocol Labs, and Coinbase Ventures participated in a $1.7 million dollar series A in September of 2021. They are currently hiring developers and engineers (including an experienced reliability engineer)
‍Twitter
Unstoppable Domains
Lighthouse is building “the search engine of the open metaverse”. The goal of the project is to unify all open-metaverses by building a query system for items, locations, and friends in popular metaverses like Sandbox and Decentraland. One of the core principles of Lighthouse is the idea that “landing pages” will be replaced by “landing places” and the team is building tools to enable metaverse participants to easily find and navigate to these “places”. Furthermore, Lighthouse is looking to bolster the ability for metaverse users to meet up with friends, gain followers, and to be generally more social across different environments.
Lighthouse raised $7 million led by co-led by Accel, BlockTower, Animoca Brands and other crypto VCs. The company is currently hiring full-stack and backend developers.
‍Twitter
Lighthouse raised $7 million led by co-led by Accel, BlockTower, Animoca Brands and other crypto VCs. The company is currently hiring full-stack and backend developers.
‍Twitter
Lighthouse
DeGods is one of the most popular NFT projects built on Solana. The project launched in late 2021 via an exclusive whitelist that was only accessible by completing an online challenge. While controversial, the launch catalyzed enough hype around the project to land it in the upper echelons of NFT-dom where it remains to this day. DeGods takes a satirical marketing approach by highlighting the meaningless nature of NFTs and the seemingly fake ways in which they are bought and sold.
The NFTs are not only deflationary but holders who sell below an assigned floor value are subject to a painful 33% tax. These measures are designed to encourage the DeGods community to abide by the project's not-so-subtle motto: "F*ck Paperhands". DeGods can be staked to earn $DUST tokens on a native staking application called DeStake. The project was founded in late 2021 by Rohun Vora who can be found on Twitter @frankdegods.
‍We encourage you to take a look at DeGods 2023 roadmap which appears to be jam-packed with IRL events, new products, and merch.
‍Twitter
The NFTs are not only deflationary but holders who sell below an assigned floor value are subject to a painful 33% tax. These measures are designed to encourage the DeGods community to abide by the project's not-so-subtle motto: "F*ck Paperhands". DeGods can be staked to earn $DUST tokens on a native staking application called DeStake. The project was founded in late 2021 by Rohun Vora who can be found on Twitter @frankdegods.
‍We encourage you to take a look at DeGods 2023 roadmap which appears to be jam-packed with IRL events, new products, and merch.
‍Twitter
DeGods
Proof was started by venture capitalist and podcast host Kevin Rose. The company is building content and tools centered around art, creators, and entrepreneurship. Proof also offers an exclusive members club called the Proof Collective as well as multiple NFT collections. The company is rapidly launching new products, collections, and podcasts and is even planning to host its own conference in 2023. Proof is currently hiring a Senior Product Designer in Los Angeles, California.
‍Twitter
‍Twitter
Proof
Alchemy is the leading web3 development platform powering millions of users around the world. Alchemy's mission is to bring blockchain technology to the masses by enabling web3 developers to quickly build and deploy products. With a developer platform designed to ease the process of building and running on-chain applications, Alchemy provides a “translation layer” that streamlines programming, data querying, and dapp deployment. Tools like Alchemy are vital for the web3 ecosystem because they allow products to launch, scale, and iterate quickly. The most recognized names in web3 like Dapper, dYdX, and Opensea, as well as established name brands like Meta, Adobe, and Shopify, use Alchemy’s infrastructure to build and manage their applications.
Founded in 2017 by Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau, Alchemy has raised a total $550 million to date and is valued at a whopping $10.2 billion. Over the past year, Alchemy has grown from 35 to just over 100 employees — a remarkably small team making an outsized impact. The “AWS of web3” is hiring for dozens of roles across product, research, engineering, sales, and more. Check out their jobs page for the latest.
‍Twitter
Founded in 2017 by Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau, Alchemy has raised a total $550 million to date and is valued at a whopping $10.2 billion. Over the past year, Alchemy has grown from 35 to just over 100 employees — a remarkably small team making an outsized impact. The “AWS of web3” is hiring for dozens of roles across product, research, engineering, sales, and more. Check out their jobs page for the latest.
‍Twitter
Alchemy
Fireblocks is a leading institutional crypto-wallet company whose mission is to “remove the  complexity of working with digital assets”. Over 15% of all crypto transactions are routed through Fireblocks wallets. The company caters to firms ranging from venture capitalists to apps like Robinhood to large banks like BNY Mellon. Fireblocks enables corporations to define access controls for their crypto and leverages multiparty computation to keep private key material decentralized and secure. Furthermore, customers of Fireblocks enjoy direct access to cryptos largest exchanges, trading desks, and counterparties.
Fireblocks was started in 2017 by Michael Shaulov, Idan Ofrat, and Pavel Berengoltz. All three founders have extensive experience in the cybersecurity world and have built Fireblocks into a crypto juggernaut. In January of 2022, Fireblocks raised a $550 million series E at an $8 billion valuation and became the highest valued digital asset infrastructure company in the world. Fireblocks has many open roles including engineering, research, and business development.
‍Twitter
Fireblocks was started in 2017 by Michael Shaulov, Idan Ofrat, and Pavel Berengoltz. All three founders have extensive experience in the cybersecurity world and have built Fireblocks into a crypto juggernaut. In January of 2022, Fireblocks raised a $550 million series E at an $8 billion valuation and became the highest valued digital asset infrastructure company in the world. Fireblocks has many open roles including engineering, research, and business development.
‍Twitter
Fireblocks
Floor is a smartphone app that enables users to monitor their collections, stay on top of the market, and browse listings. The companies mission is to “make NFTs more accessible and understandable”. The application launched behind a token gate in 2021 and has around 3.5k users in its closed beta.
Floor was co-founded by ex-venmo engineer Chris Maddern, ex-Robinhood COO Christine Brown, and ex-AKQA engineer Siddhartha Dabral. The company raised an $8 million dollar series A with Crypto.com, Exponential Capital, and Worklife Ventures on the cap table. Check out open roles here.
‍Twitter
Floor was co-founded by ex-venmo engineer Chris Maddern, ex-Robinhood COO Christine Brown, and ex-AKQA engineer Siddhartha Dabral. The company raised an $8 million dollar series A with Crypto.com, Exponential Capital, and Worklife Ventures on the cap table. Check out open roles here.
‍Twitter
Floor
Ex-Reddit engineer Mayank Jain was frustrated with cumbersome crypto wallets and grew determined to build a better solution. Jain started Wally in 2022 and has already shipped an unparalleled product that allows users to sign up to dApps with an email address and “1-click”. This onboarding flow removes the severe complexity of self-custody wallets and private key management. Developer teams that want to integrate Wally enjoy quick deployment, access to top blockchains, and the security of multiparty computation (MPC). Wally aims to radically improve onboarding experiences in web3 to help usher in the next wave of blockchain users. One of the things that sets Wally apart is that they are bucking the remote-only trend and working in-person in their office in NYC. Do you want to join Wally’s founding team? They are currently hiring a founding engineer.
‍Twitter
‍Twitter
Wally
Snag Solutions builds whitelabel NFT exchanges for organizations looking to avoid the constraints and fees associated with traditional exchanges like MagicEden and OpenSea. The project was launched in the summer of 2022, but has seen tremendous buzz after winning the bid to build the ApeCoin DAO NFT marketplace. Snag Solutions was able to outcompete both Rarible and MagicEden for the Bored Ape NFT marketplace, cementing itself as a formidable player in the whitelabel exchange landscape. Snag marketplaces can be plugged into existing websites, have extremely low transaction fees, and mitigate fraud. The company is run by ex-DoorDash vets Zach Heerwagon and Jason Jong. They are currently hiring roles across engineering, product, and community.
‍Twitter
‍Twitter
Snag
To determine the list, Thirdwork ran an open application process, accepting nominations from the public. The list was shared widely across Twitter, Discord and LinkedIn. We then evaluated projects across a range of criteria, including hiring trends and open roles, fundraising data, employee reviews, and open-source information about employer reputation.
While we recognized that any list would be inherently subjective, our goal was to surface and spotlight projects the startups that have proactively focused on creating a strong positive culture for employees, contributors and community members.
While we recognized that any list would be inherently subjective, our goal was to surface and spotlight projects the startups that have proactively focused on creating a strong positive culture for employees, contributors and community members.
Thirdwork is an on-demand freelance talent platform for web3. We help the best web3 and crypto startups hire product, design, and marketing freelancers in 48 hours or less.
In the course of building thirdwork, we’ve talked to hundreds of startups and thousands of builders in the space. We’ve heard horror stories on both sides (freelancers getting ghosted by companies, startups accidentally hiring scammers, and more wild tales).
We carefully vet every applicant (freelance and company) that applies to join thirdwork, with only an 8% acceptance rate. That carefully vetting process gave us the motivation to open-source our list of some of the best places to work in web3.
In the course of building thirdwork, we’ve talked to hundreds of startups and thousands of builders in the space. We’ve heard horror stories on both sides (freelancers getting ghosted by companies, startups accidentally hiring scammers, and more wild tales).
We carefully vet every applicant (freelance and company) that applies to join thirdwork, with only an 8% acceptance rate. That carefully vetting process gave us the motivation to open-source our list of some of the best places to work in web3.
Talent Protocol is the web3 professional community and platform for high-potential builders where they can build a verifiable on-chain resume and find the support they need to succeed. Sign-up to create a beautiful web3 profile, make meaningful connections and access exciting web3 opportunities.