Don't be intimidated by Web3: Understand exchange business logic in 5 minutes and improve your resume's success rate.

Author: TT3 Labs

Many people worry when applying for positions at centralized exchanges (CEXs: Binance, OKX, Bitget, etc.): "I've never bought cryptocurrency and don't understand blockchain; will my resume be rejected immediately?" Don't be intimidated by terms like "Web3/decentralized." An exchange is essentially a Fintech company. Most exchanges' daily work revolves around solving four types of problems: trade matching, fiat currency deposits and withdrawals, asset management, and growth operations. This 5-minute guide will help you understand the four main business scenarios of exchanges, targeting tech/product/operations/finance professionals without a Web3 background. It also provides corresponding resume writing tips and keywords to help you align your past experience with exchange positions, increasing your resume's success rate and interview opportunities.

Four business scenarios of centralized exchanges

1. Transactions and Matching: Pursuing Efficiency and Stability

The first core element, and also the core business of the exchange, is the trading and matching system.

You can think of it as the brokerage app or stock trading software we usually use. They are very similar in their core functions, except that the trading instruments have changed from traditional stocks to Bitcoin, Ethereum, or the increasingly popular RWA (Real-World Asset Tokenization, such as US stock tokens).

However, in this 24/7 global market, the challenges faced by the system are even more severe. When market conditions fluctuate wildly, a massive number of people may suddenly want to buy or close their positions. If the underlying system cannot handle this and the system lags, the common complaint of "unplugging the network cable" will occur.

What's even more troublesome is that if the system experiences a delay, many orders that should have been filled won't be, causing the price to plummet on the chart—what users commonly call a "pin drop." This not only leads to innocent users being liquidated but also creates a huge crisis of confidence for the exchange.

How can your experience be incorporated? If you've participated in building traditional brokerage trading systems or worked on the architecture for e-commerce's Double Eleven flash sales, knowing how to handle sudden surges in traffic and push system latency to its limits, then when preparing your resume, focus on your concurrency processing capabilities and system stability optimization . As long as some underlying technical experience aligns with these skills, your chances of success in the interview will be greatly increased.

Common job titles: Backend Engineer/Matching Engine Engineer/SRE/Performance Tester/System Architect

Resume keywords: low latency/matching engine/order system/market data system/real-time push/abnormal transaction and spike risk control

2. Payment and Exchange: Streamlining the process for users to deposit and withdraw funds.

The second core element is the fiat currency deposit and withdrawal channel. Simply put, it helps users solve the problem of "how to smoothly buy crypto assets with local currency, and how to withdraw profits".

Imagine a user in South America wanting to buy assets worth a few dozen dollars using a credit card in the local currency. This involves numerous verification processes, and the platform must also guard against credit card fraud, black market activities, and money laundering from around the world. It's an extremely complex process, very similar to the payment process in global cross-border e-commerce.

How can your experience be incorporated? If you have experience in cross-border e-commerce (such as independent websites going global) handling overseas payment integration, or if you have experience in traditional financial institutions or third-party payment companies dealing with anti-fraud (risk control) and compliance issues, then you have some business scenarios that can be directly transferred. When optimizing your resume, you can highlight how you improved the success rate of payment channels, how you handled overseas credit card chargebacks, or how you identified and blocked fraudulent transactions through rules. This way, the pitfalls you encountered in the past can naturally resonate with their daily headaches in business.

Common job roles: Payment Product/Payment Operations/Risk Control Strategy/Anti-fraud/Compliance Operations

Resume keywords: payment gateway/chargeback/anti-fraud/AML/KYC/conversion rate/success rate

3. Asset Management and Wealth Management: The Operational Logic of Platform's Staple Funds

The third core element is asset management. When users aren't trading, they can choose to keep their money and cryptocurrency on the platform or in a cold wallet. To retain these funds, the platform designs products similar to "fixed deposits," "Yu'ebao" (a popular Chinese money market fund), or structured investment options, allowing users to earn some interest.

The biggest challenge in this business is designing a reasonable rate of return model while ensuring the absolute safety of user funds and maintaining sufficient liquidity (to handle large-scale withdrawals at any time). The goal is to increase user retention through wealth management products while simultaneously generating revenue for the platform, all while maintaining sound balance sheet management.

How can your experience be integrated? This area of ​​business is almost entirely interconnected with the design of traditional fund and securities firm wealth management products. If you have a background in internet finance product management, traditional financial derivatives design, or quantitative research, discussing your understanding of liquidity calculation, implicit guarantee risk control, and structured product design during the interview would be a very good starting point.

Common job roles: Asset Management Product Manager/Quantitative Research/Wealth Management Products/Risk Control/Fund Management

Resume keywords: Liquidity management/Yield model/Balance sheet/Structured financial products/Risk exposure

4. Growth and Operations: The Competition for Global Market Trading Users

The final core issue is traffic acquisition. Like any ordinary internet app, exchanges also face severe traffic anxiety. Running various IPO promotions, trading competitions, and referral bonuses is essentially a combination of strategies to "attract new users, increase user activity, retain users, and convert them into paying customers."

How do we acquire customers at minimal cost when facing culturally diverse overseas markets? How do we conduct localized community operations? How do we use A/B testing to find the highest-converting campaign landing page? These are the tasks our growth team performs every day.

How can your experience be incorporated? If you have experience in overseas game user acquisition and publishing, cross-border e-commerce event operations, or extensive experience in overseas KOL marketing, you can highlight your data-driven thinking and localized community management experience in your resume. While the business models of your past experiences may differ, the underlying logic of traffic generation remains the same.

Common job roles: Growth Operations/Event Operations/Advertising/Channels/BD/KOL Manager/CRM

Resume keywords: User acquisition and activation/Conversion funnel/A/B testing/Localization/Advertising/KOLs/Rebate mechanism

Conclusion

Once you understand these four sections, you'll find that the business logic of exchanges remains the familiar commercial and technological logic. Many aspects of your past experience can actually be directly applied.

If after reading this article you feel that part of your background aligns with these business scenarios, why not take the plunge and give it a try? Currently, tt3labs.com is offering numerous remote Web3 and exchange positions for cross-disciplinary talent—explore new possibilities for your career!

FAQ

1) Can I apply for a job at an exchange if I don't understand blockchain? Yes. Most positions prioritize business fit and transferability. On-chain knowledge is a plus, not a hard requirement.

2) What general capabilities do exchanges value most? Stability and risk awareness (not collapsing in extreme market conditions, fund security as the top priority), data capabilities (able to use data to find problems and verify changes), global business experience (multi-country payment/compliance/localization), growth and conversion capabilities (quantifiable user acquisition, activation, and retention), and cross-team collaboration (alignment of product/R&D/risk control/customer service/legal departments).

3) Which positions at exchanges are best suited for individuals with "cross-disciplinary/non-Web3 backgrounds"? Technical: Backend/Architecture/SRE/Testing/Security. Business: Payment, Risk Control, Anti-fraud, Customer Service Operations, Event Operations, Growth, Data Analysis. Financial: Asset Management, Wealth Management Products, Quantitative Trading, Derivatives.

Related reading: With shrinking salaries, higher entry barriers, and restrictions on residency status, is Web3 still worth pursuing in 2026?