Amazon Looks to Hire Blockchain Staffers With Experience of DeFi

Amazon is searching for staff with experience in decentralized finance (DeFi), according to a job ad posted for Blockchain Head of Product.

“The candidate will have a track record delivering outstanding products at scale in emerging spaces, and is passionate about blockchain, distributed systems, and cloud scale software,” the ad stated. “Ideally you will have experience delivering products or innovations in the blockchain space, and in particular DeFi or Traditional Financial Services.”

Amazon has been subject to speculation it was looking for staff to build a digital payment token, which appeared to be part of an emerging-payments initiative to be test-driven in Mexico.

The blockchain product lead is part of Amazon Managed Blockchain, which recently added support for Ethereum, the public blockchain that is the original home of DeFi. Amazon Managed Blockchain started out as the internet giant’s version of an enterprise blockchain cloud offering. Rather like Microsoft’s Azure blockchain, it’s a way for companies to quickly spin up private or permissioned blockchains in the cloud.

If nothing else, it’s clear DeFi has caught Amazon’s attention. The company namechecked DeFi on three occasions. “Experience in Decentralized Finance a plus,” the ad says, along with a familiarity with Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric.

“Amazon Managed Blockchain (AMB) is a fully managed service that accelerates customers' ability to create and leverage scalable blockchain technology for current and innovative business use cases across DeFi, Supply Chain, Financial Services, Identity, and more."