U.S. Telecom Giant Verizon Enters the Blockchain Space, Set to Hire 35 Blockchain Engineers

Another industry giant has joined the blockchain bandwagon. According to a recent report, U.S. telecom giant Verizon has published 35 vacancies requiring ‘blockchain technology knowledge’.

Blockchain-based Product Focused on Privacy, Payments, And Security in Progress

The telecom giant revealed via a recent LinkedIn post for blockchain-engineers that it is currently developing a blockchain-based product focused on privacy, payments, and security.

On its official website, the telecom giant is in search of five blockchain engineers, along with a “blockchain technology development” lead. These five brings the total number of vacancies that requires ‘blockchain knowledge’ to 35 on Verizon’s list.

The Job Requirement

According to the job ad, the person required is someone who: Will be responsible for developing and delivering of initial prototypes and product proof-of-concepts which includes use case development, technical requirements, customer co-development testing and commercialization handoff.

One of the ads explained that: “the focus of the individual will be on blockchain and other identity/security initiatives. (e.g. confidential computing, secure payments) in the emerging technology space.”

Verizon is not the only telecom giant making moves to gain some ground in the blockchain industry. A notable mention is AT&T. Since the start of this year, the telecom giant not only began assembling a team of blockchain experts, but AT&T began accepting Bitcoin for cable payments via payments processor BitPay.

Telecommunication companies are not the only centralised industry planning to build a “distributed network [with] various use cases”. Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and a larger number of financial institutions have been hiring several blockchain experts since early last year.

This hiring frenzy has made finding a competent blockchain engineer scarce.
Reportedly, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are “taking the cream of the crop” when it comes to hiring blockchain engineers. According to an unnamed engineer, the has interviewed over 100 candidates in the last couple of years and it’s getting harder to find good calibre candidates in the blockchain.”