Are you a poor web developer? Are you not happy with your salary? Well read this article, because I am going to give you a very simple trick to boost your salary.
I used to be a poor Web developer
I used to be a poor web developer.
But one day, I made a change in my career. A very simple change, and I doubled my salary in a couple of month. And today I am going to tell you what it is.
The thing is, if you are a web developer, you are sitting on a goldmine:
- You have already done most of the work.
- But you don’t realize it.
Typical stories of poor web developers
Meet John, a PHP developer:
- He’s been building WordPress sites for 5 years.
- He works 50 hours a week, constantly dealing with plugin conflicts and theme customizations.
- He makes $45,000 a year…It barely covers his rent in the city.
He’s stuck building the same CRUD applications over and over, wondering if this is all there is to his career.
Then there’s Sarah:
- She is a JavaScript developer
- 3 years of experience
- She jumped from Angular to Vue to React, always chasing the latest framework
- She Spends weekends learning new tools that become obsolete in months
- She is still stuck at $60,000…She cannot save anything after bills.
Her friends in marketing and sales are making more money with less stress.
And Mike?
- Full-stack developer.
- He Does everything – frontend, backend, deployment, database management.
- He is very solid technically. At his company, the whole team depends on him.
- His colleague and his boss are so appreciative.
- 7 years of experience. $75,000 salary.
These aren’t just random examples. This is the reality for most web developers. As of me, I used to be one of the these overworked and underpaid PHP dev. So I know the feeling.
Why Web developers are poor?
Well, the market is really flooded. Everyone’s learning web development:
- Bootcamp pumping out thousands of new developers every month
- Self-taught developers following free YouTube tutorials
- College students with fresh computer science degrees
- Career changers looking for better opportunities
- Overseas developers willing to work for lower rates
Basic web development has become a commodity. Supply and demand – simple economics. When everyone can do something, its value decreases.
There used to be some web technologies better paid than other. For example, Javascript and React. In 2015, Javascript and React started to become really hot. But not anymore. Javascript is the new PHP. Everybody and their mums know it.
The reality is that we are at the end of a cycle that started more than 20 years ago:
- When the internet was starting, there were very few web developers.
- Then VC money started to poor in.
- More and more companies started to build on the web.
- This caused a massive demand of web developer.
- And for a while the market was good.
- But now, we are at end of this cycle.
In 2024, just being a web developer is not good enough.
Common solutions that do not work.
So what can you do? You could ask for a raise?
- “Sorry, not in the budget right now.”
- “Maybe next quarter.” “Your performance needs improvement.”
- “We need to wait for the next review cycle.”
Sound familiar?
Another solution is to switch companies. Sure, you might get a 15% bump. For example, from $45,000 to $52,000. Or From $60,000 to $69,000.
Still not life-changing money…And you still need to keep learning more frameworks… Angular? Check. React? Check. Vue? Check. Next.js? Check. Tailwind? Check.
The result? You are still competing with thousands of other developers who know the exact same stack. It’s just a marginal improvement. you don’t really solve the core problem, which is, you are in a bad market, and there is no way you can win.
The Real Solution
Here’s the truth: You need to specialize in something HOT.
You need to leave the red-blood market of web development.
You need to become more unique.
You need to stand out.
There are many ways to do this. But one of the smartest way is to pick a trend. Like the saying goes, “a rising tide lifts all boats”.
Now I know that you already have your Web development skills. You probably worked hard to get these skills. So it would be a shame to start from scratch. But you don’t have it.
What if you could find a new tech trend that exploits your current skills? Can we do that?
The 2 hot trends in tech
Right now, there are two massive opportunities in the tech industry:
- AI
- Blockchain
Well, you could specialize in either of these fields. It’s not an easy choice. Both options are really good. And they are even ways to combine them.
Right now, there is small advantage to crypto, because with the recent boom of the crypto market , we see a lot of attention going back to crypto.
The past 2 years, AI was the center of attention. I believe in the next 2 years, crypto will make a big comeback.
So what kind of salary you can make in crypto?
- Junior Blockchain Developer: $80,000-$100,000
- Mid-level: $120,000-$150,000
- Senior: $150,000-$250,000+
- Lead Blockchain Architect: $300,000+
The demand is pretty big:
- Lots of major company are building blockchain teams
- Banks are desperate for blockchain devs
- Startups are raising millions for blockchain projects
- DeFi protocols need Blockchain developers
You also have less Competition than on the Web: For every 100 Web developers There’s only 1 blockchain developer. Supply and demand works in YOUR favor.
But it’s not even the most important.
Why you are sitting on a goldmine
The most important is that you are sitting on a goldmine, and you don’t even know it.
Most web developers are scared of blockchain. They think it’s very complex. Few understand both web and blockchain
But here is the best part: YOU ALREADY KNOW 90%!
When you are a Web developer, you already know 90pct of what is required to become a Blockchain developer. I know, it sounds surprising. But it’s the reality.
This is where it gets exciting.
Let me break down a typical Blockchain application, also called, decentralized application or (DApp:
- You have a frontend layer – in html, css and javascript – and you already know this
- React/Vue/Angular for the user interface HTML/CSS for styling
- JavaScript for interactivity API calls to fetch data and connect to the blockchain
- You have an optional backend layer – and you also already know this
- Node.js/Express for API endpoints Sometime you have a Database
The only new layer is the Blockchain Layer:
- From the frontend, or from the backend, you have an integration with the blockchain
- This integration is done with web technologies. It’s just a regular API call, and you already know this
- You will have an integration with smart contracts, which are small programs on the Blockchain. This is the part that you don’t know. The smart contract, and the integration with them.
But here is the thing. Here’s the secret most people don’t tell you:
As a Fullstack Blockchain developer, you don’t need to create the smart contract…You just need to integrate with them! So it’s big chunk of complexity that you don’t need to deal with this.
So what about the integration with smart contracts?
You have to think of smart contracts like APIs:
- They have endpoints – technically we call them functions
- They accept parameters
- They modify data
- They return data
- They have documentation
- They’re already deployed and tested
- And there are easy-to-use Javascript libraries that do the heavy lifting like Web3.js or ethers.js.
So to recap, 90% of blockchain development is:
- Creating beautiful frontends (your existing skills)
- Building robust backends (your existing skills)
- Connecting to existing smart contracts (just new libraries)
AI and Blockchain
A lot developers are getting confused with what is AI:
AI is not a category itself. AI is a tool. And as a tool, it will be used in many different use cases.
And Blockchain is one of these use cases. So you can combine and Blockchain in your skillset. For example, you can use AI to generate code for Blockchain applications.
So you don’t really have to chose between AI and crypto.
Conclusion
So Don’t stay stuck in the Web development hamster wheel.
You can have a massive career boost if you specialize in Blockchain. And it’s not even that difficult: you already know most of the skills!
If you want to get started as a Blockchain developer developer, follow this free roadmap. You will learn the required skills, and you will discover what are the best opportunities in crypto. I have already done the research for you. It’s going to save you a few weeks of research on your own.
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