Unlocking Digital Identity: How a Project Manager Discovered the Game-Changing Impact of Cardano's Low-Code Smart Contracts
Loading Video...
Preparing the interview
Complete interview transcript & analysis below
Enhanced transcript with interviewer insights
INTERVIEWER
You are When I think bolder woman, you are a bolder woman, meaning outdoorsy, right? Very free-spirited, independent-minded, and you're now looking at, um, a tech company. Uh, about which you probably had never known much about prior to this role presenting itself to you. Fine. So, what is in, in this case, um, You, you can limit this to um. The company itself or the space, right? But what is the most interesting thing that you've learned? About Dei crypto or this company as you've prepared for this interview.
CANDIDATE
Yeah, so I've taken a pretty holistic and in-depth look at IOHK and uh the mission of the company, and I actually, uh first uh discovered uh IOHK and, well, Cardano, the number one product for which you're known, uh, through watching, I was just surfing YouTube and I was reading about digital identity. And I discovered that there was this connection between blockchain and crypto and digital identity. I heard the founder of uh IOHK Charles Hoskinson, talking about providing decentralized digital identity to uh the developing world, uh, which would then give them access to a broader financial services and Even potentially down the line lead to digital voting and all sorts of uh really exciting um potential impacts on improving uh their quality of life in the future. And I, uh, immediately started looking into Cardano and the Cardano mission and everything that the, uh, that you guys are, uh, undertaking. Now and discovered that uh you take this very rigorous approach to rolling out um the blockchain technology in a way that will be more scalable, secure, interoperable. Uh, and sustainable, which makes it a lot more appealing for adoption by government institution, enterprise institutions, and Fortune 500 companies. Um, and to me, all of this really hopefully will lead to, uh, creating a more transparent and fair, uh, society, uh, for all of us to live in.
Interviewer Insight
note: the question was what was the most interesting thing learned. This is a list of topics that candidate discovered about the target company. There was no single idea that broke through in this answer as the most interesting thing.
INTERVIEWER
But what was it specifically that that you learned, right? That was a lot of stuff about their mission, it's great, but what was it specifically that, like, you know, topic wise that you learned?
CANDIDATE
So, uh, one thing that's really interesting, for instance, that I stumbled upon recently is learning about your, uh, smart contracts programming language. And, uh, the way in which you've developed that language to be uh mobile first and low code, uh, and therefore much easier for more ordinary people without a coding background to adopt. Um, I see this particular approach as being really Um, exciting because this way many more people will be able to take advantage of your smart contract platform, and I realized that you guys are kind of in a race, so to speak, with um Ethereum to become the number one smart contracts platform. And I think that uh your coding languages are a great uh solution for for getting there.
Interviewer Insight
note: good start but needs more content. What is it about smart contracts that are useful to anyone? Anyone working at IOHK will of course have strong opinions about this, but in communicating what candidate learned that was interesting the candidate is demonstrating an ability to think through complex topics and present clear customer value, which is key for a marketing professional in a tech company. All the more so for a professional trying to break into tech from a non-related industry.
INTERVIEWER
How much do you know about solidity on Ethereum?
CANDIDATE
I don't know that much about Solidity, uh, in particular. I know that it's the Ethereum programming language.
INTERVIEWER
OK. What, what was it about smart contracts that made you wanna learn more?
CANDIDATE
I realized that smart contracts carry with them a functionality, um, that actually have applications across industries, uh, that can potentially disintermediate some of these, like, so-called trusted third parties, um, that we've all come to rely on, uh, for transacting with one another or transacting, uh, To, between two individuals or two entities without a prior relationship. And um I believe that the smart contract functionality will be increasingly adopted by more and more uh companies across industries with applications for governance and supply chain traceability and digital identity and, and academic institutions and uh so on.
Interviewer Insight
note during interview: this is way too high level, very non-specific, and sounds like something from a whitepaper from 10 years ago.
INTERVIEWER
OK. Uh, one second, there's my note here. Um, So, You mentioned YouTube, but very curious to know how you went about your process in getting educated about smart contracts. Just walk me through that.
CANDIDATE
OK. Um, so, so I, I've spent, I've done a lot of self-education on blockchain technology and smart contract functionality and um some of the challenges associated with all of this. I've, uh, uh, yeah, I've done a lot of research using, um, Uh, your own content, um, IOHK and the Cardano community have provided just a really unlimited amount of resources on learning all about smart contract functionality, and I rely on a lot, a lot of other, um, outlets like Coin desk and some other, um, Um, media companies that are providing information about this. Um, I also took a course through the MIT blockchain, um, Institution, and they had a uh a course on blockchain technology and smart contract functionality, and I've then gone ahead and I've actually mapped out a lot of the key concepts, um, in kind of a glossary, uh, and to be to be able to better relate how these key concepts, um, relate to one another and what their impacts are and why they matter.
Interviewer Insight
note: good - solid framework with decent enough breadth for an industry outsider.
INTERVIEWER
And so if I take that last example that you just used, your client, the snowboard, uh, lady, we're just gonna call her fierce snowboard lady, um, and everything that you've learned about smart contracts, if you were to think forward into the future, taking what you've learned, right? Uh-huh. Well, how would you? Explain to her that this would or would not be useful for her. No, let's, let's focus on how, uh, in what way would you try to convince her. No. In what application, not in what way, but in what, and using what application would you try to say, hey, this is something you may want to consider if you want to get ahead of the curve and to continue meeting your goals of selling snowboards. How, how would you, and I understand it's a crazy hypothetical because snowboarders and smart contracts are two words you wouldn't expect to ever use in the same sentence, but, but we're gonna go there.
CANDIDATE
Um, that's a creative thought experiment, really, um, and, uh, interesting to think about. Well, on the one hand, you have the supply chain traceability aspect where maybe her, um, her audience is particularly concerned about her sourcing her materials from a sustainable known source, in which case, um, there are, uh, Implications right now for using um Uh, supply chain traceability, uh, technology for being able to track where materials are coming from, um. Uh, so that's one potential way in which she could look into how blockchain technology might impact her business. Um, another potential solution is Um, her her payment processing, um, technology, she, uh, sells snowboards through Shopify and, um, uses Stripe and Visa and a lot of other payment processors to, uh, manage payments and, uh, potentially, uh, with DeFi coming around, uh, she could allow people to pay for snowboards using a cryptocurrency and be able to Uh, pay her directly, um, potentially eliminating some transaction fees, um, which may impact her bottom line in a positive way. Um, there, those are two examples that I would, would think of right away off the top of my head. Um,
Interviewer Insight
note: honestly, this was probably the best answer of the whole interview. Could have used a bit more depth for the practical application of it, but the quick thinking, and the clearly usable solution which also would work for the core customer of the snowboard maker, was very good.
INTERVIEWER
it's good. I, I like, I think you're. Initial one about the sustainability sourcing is uh certainly one that would land with her audience. Right, and it doesn't have to be too nerdy and ah it's on the blockchain, but, uh, it's certainly something that, uh, certainly, uh, folks in the snowboarding community would understand and appreciate, especially if she's making boards out of bamboo or something like that. But uh. OK.
Expert Assessment
Interviewer assessment - would be used in a hiring meeting
One of the hazards of trying to break into the tech industry is the inherent bias of those already working in the industry to think that those not already there cannot possibly understand their complex thing. Candidate did a good job, with sufficient prompting, to walk through their framework for what and how they had learned about their new target employer. Candidate really shined in bridging from what they had learned to presenting a clear and useful case for the smart contracts for a previous client who was unlikely to have any blockchain tech deployed.