Paige Jones

What is your background?

My professional background started at The University of Kansas, where I graduated with a bachelor's degree in marketing in 2016. After graduation I knew I wanted to travel, specifically to Asia, so I closed my eyes and put my finger on a map. It landed on South Korea - so off I went! After moving across the globe, I began teaching English and worked for a couple of startups in Seoul doing marketing. 

I stayed in South Korea for around four years working and enjoying the country and its culture when I soon found myself completely fascinated with software development. I taught myself how to program, and after about six months of studying software development, I moved back to Kansas City to pursue a software engineering role at an engineering firm. At the time, I was focusing on things like developing and testing mission-critical software for clients in the military and aerospace industry, it was a really great start to my career. 

How did you become interested in web3?

My family is full of artists and designers, so that was my initial avenue into web3. Around this time in 2021, digital art NFTs were gaining a lot of traction, and I began to find myself pretty interested in the technical side of NFTs. I started exploring smart contracts and different NFT standards and quickly became obsessed with the web3 space. While I have a deep appreciation for the creative side of NFTs, I was more fascinated with the blockchain technology and smart contracts that made NFTs possible. From there, I started attending various Ethereum-based hackathons and quickly realized that web3 has an incredible developer community which was very inviting. I started to immerse myself in the space and learn as much as I could - I then decided I wanted to pursue a full-time career in web3 and began my job search. 

How did you get started with Pinata?

After deciding to pursue web3 full-time, I began to constantly explore job postings and different opportunities in the space. I came across Pinata’s job opening for a software engineer and was immediately interested. I had previously used some of Pinata’s services and gateways in a few of my previous personal NFT projects, so I was pretty excited about this opportunity. From a developer’s standpoint, I had always really admired the stability and creativity that Pinata embodied, so I knew early on that it would be a good fit for me. I applied and was offered a software engineer position, and here we are now! 

What is your role at Pinata and what do you do? 

I’m a software engineer with a focus on Pinata’s experimental project turned standalone tool - Submarine. Submarine is an app geared toward non-technical content creators, and it allows creators to easily create and share unlockable content with no code involved. My day-to-day involves working closely with my team to prioritize and develop new features for the app, and meeting with potential users and partners to help them understand the technical side of Submarine.me. On top of that, web3 is constantly evolving, so a big part of my role is staying up to date with tech trends and identifying how and if we should use those in Submarine. 

How did you approach your web3 job search?

When I first decided that I wanted to pursue a full-time role in web3, I started to attend a lot of hackathons. For me, I felt like this was the best way to get involved in the community and also become aware of what type of opportunities existed in the web3 space career-wise. By immersing myself in these different communities and attending as many events as possible, I was able to start networking and learning about the different types of job paths I could take and the different projects I could get involved in. I was able to create a lot of wonderful connections, attend amazing hackathon events, learn more about the web3 space, and collect a pretty impressive collection of POAPs.

What was the hiring process like?

After applying for a software engineer role on Pinata’s website, I had an initial call with Justin, our Head of Product. The call allowed me to get a sense of what Pinata does and the type of engineer they were searching for, then followed that with a culture fit interview and a technical take-home project. Since I was applying for a role specifically to work with Submarine, the project I was given focused on using our Submarine API. This project allowed me to showcase my abilities, and I then had one final interview with several engineers on our team. By the end of the interview process, I had met many of my future team members and was confident in my decision to accept the offer. 

Any tips for people looking to make a similar transition? 

My biggest piece of advice would be to network as much as possible in person! Every company has different values that they stand for, and by speaking to current employees in person, you can get a strong sense of what the ecosystem at the company is really like. I would also deeply research the types of roles you’re interested in, being able to truly understand the role requirements and goals of the company that you’re applying to can be incredibly helpful when trying to find a quality role.