Gresshaa Mehta

What is your background?

I have a background in business and tech consulting. Before web3, I worked in a variety of roles such as UX design, marketing, consulting, and project management. I had a particularly bad experience at some traditional web2 tech companies so the transition to web3 was a pleasant refresh for me. 

I’m currently attending grad school in the evenings at the University of Washington, Seattle in their Human Centered Design and Engineering program while working at Orca Protocol as a Product Designer.

How did you become interested in web3?

Back in 2017, I attended a few events organized by Blockchain at Berkeley and at the time all I could understand was how CryptoKitties worked. Fast forward to 2020, I met the co-founders of Orca Protocol - Julia Rosenberg and John Sterlacci; they did an amazing job onboarding me and a few of our team members to web3. As we dove deeper into the web3 rabbithole, I found beginner friendly communities such as she256, web3baddies, and SheFi that helped me fall in love with this industry.

What is your role and what do you do?

I work at Orca Protocol, a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) coordination tool, as their lead product designer. We’re currently building our design team and on a day to day basis, I work closely with the development team to bring Orca’s UI to life and in the hands of our users.

How did you approach your web3 job search?‍

I had published my design portfolio on multiple websites and Julia (Orca’s amazing co-founder) found my portfolio on Deloris, a website for BIPOC creatives. She reached out and helped me quit the toxic web2 company I was working for. Web3 (specifically, Orca) showed me what work life balance looked like. I’d recommend making the jump if you’re on edge!

What was the hiring process like?

The hiring process was pretty straightforward. Since I was one of the first few hires, I mostly interacted with the co-founders. Here was the structure of the whole process:

• Informational Chat 
• Design Challenge
• Meet the team

I worked part time for a few months before jumping into web3 full time in 2021.

Any tips for people looking to make a similar transition?

1. Make a twitter account!
2. Follow web3 thought leaders to learn more about the space
3. Join discord servers of DAOs you care about
4. Look out for opportunities to contribute to DAOs part time and grab a bounty or grant to complete work so you understand which niche in web3 you want to work in. This method also gives you an in with that DAO rather than applying cold.
5. Check out curated web3 job boards such as she256’s job board. Once you find one you’re interested in, reach out to their career dev lead to put you in touch with a recruiter directly.
6. Web3 is a small industry so meet as many people as you can!
   

Web3 can seem like a very daunting space, especially with the gatekeeping and giga-chads walking around. I’d recommend finding communities where you feel comfortable and safe asking questions. For me, those were Orca Protocol, she256, web3baddies, and SheFi.