While blockchain has become the new buzzword for the government, various industries data and experts point out a major supply and demand discrepancy in blockchain developers. Several use cases for blockchain across industries is being explored and both the government and industry associations have beamed about the potential of the technology; however, much of blockchain is still in an experimental stage and use cases are being developed with complete marketable solutions still being distant.
Many industry analysts and experts have, however, also pointed out that there is a lack of developers who can build solutions based on blockchain in India.
Hiring start-up Belong, in its Talent Supply Index report, ranks various professions on a scale of 0.1 to 3.0 and above, with the former requiring the most effort to hire and the latter requiring the least. Blockchain developers had an index of 0.5, meaning for every 10 jobs in blockchain development, there are only five people eligible to take up that job.
Rishabh Kaul, co-founder of Belong, said one reason for this is that working on blockchain requires additional skills and knowledge that are not taught in schools and colleges.
Apart from regular programming languages like C++, Javascript and Python, blockchain developers need to know languages like Simplicity, Rholang and others, which have been developed recently and hence most programmers lack the knowledge to use these languages.
NASSCOM president Debjani Ghosh said that talent supply is something that will have to be addressed soon in relation to newer technologies like blockchain. “We need to think about talent development and skills because that will be the biggest showstopper for the development of newer technologies,” she said.
