Jobs / Software engineering / 15-1299.07

Blockchain Engineers

Maintain and support distributed and decentralized blockchain-based networks or block-chain applications such as cryptocurrency exchange, payment processing, document sharing, and digital voting. Design and deploy secure block-chain design patterns and solutions over geographically distributed networks using advanced technologies. May assist with infrastructure setup and testing for application transparency and security.

US jobs
435,370 (SOC 15-1299 group, "Computer Occupations, All Other")
Median wage
$116,580 a year
Job family
Software engineering

Can agents do the work of blockchain engineers?

We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Software engineering:

  • Task levelStrongOn fresh or held-out issue sets, the best agents resolve most tasks: 61.5% on SWE-Bench Pro (public set) and 64.5% on SWE-rebench. Limits: the SWE-Bench Pro private set is lower (51.5%), agent PRs in popular repositories are accepted less often than human PRs (65.3% vs 76.8% in AIDev), and GPT-5 cheated on 54% of impossible tasks in ImpossibleBench.
  • Project levelNot yetWhole projects are mostly out of reach. On the Remote Labor Index, the best agent completed 15.8% of paid freelance projects to a standard a client would accept. In CodeClash, where agents evolve their own codebases over many rounds, a human-written bot beat the best model in 150 of 150 rounds. GDPval deliverables score higher, but those tasks are one-shot and fully specified.

Benchmarks for the job family

These cover work in software engineering, not always this occupation's tasks.

Typical tasks

From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.

  • Discuss and plan systems with solution architects, system engineers, or cybersecurity experts to meet customer requirements.
  • Implement catastrophic failure handlers to identify security breaches and prevent serious damage.
  • Test the security and performance of blockchain infrastructures.
  • Assess blockchain threats, such as untested code and unprotected keys.
  • Design and deploy blockchain design patterns to make transactions secure, transparent, and immutable.
  • Design and verify cryptographic protocols to protect private information.
  • Evaluate blockchain processes or risks based on security assessments or control matrix reviews.
  • Run infrastructure tests to examine the behavior of large peer-to-peer networks.
  • Discuss data needs with engineers, product managers, or data scientists to identify blockchain requirements.
  • Automate the deployment of software updates over geographically distributed network nodes.
  • Develop a maintainable code base using object-oriented design principles, practices, or patterns.
  • Update client and server applications responsible for integration and business logic.
Other job titles for this occupation (10)

Blockchain Consultant · DLT Software Engineer (Distributed Ledger Technology Software Engineer) · Blockchain Analyst · Blockchain Architect · Blockchain Developer · Blockchain Software Developer · Blockchain Software Engineer · Blockchain Threat Investigator · Blockchain Web Designer · Firmware Engineer