Full roadmap to learn Blockchain development

Today I will give you a full roadmap on how to become a Blockchain developer.

The best time to get into Blockchain

Right now, we are at the beginning of a giant bull market:

• The crypto market is booming
• We will soon have Bitcoin at $100k

This is a good news, because it means the demand for Blockchain developers will increase:

• Many investors are pouring money into the Blockchain industry
• Many companies want to build on Blockchain
• As a result, more Blockchain developers are required

So right now is the perfect time to jump into Blockchain, and in this article I want to:

• Explain the different career opportunities
• And what you need to learn to become a Blockchain developer

Career path in Blockchain development

Let’s start with the career path in Blockchain development.

You’ve got two main routes to explore:

• Fullstack Blockchain development
• Smart contract development

Full-Stack Blockchain Development

This is the Swiss Army knife of blockchain careers. It requires a broader, more comprehensive skill set.

It Involves building entire blockchain applications from scratch:

• Frontend
• Smart contract
• Backend if any

Even though in theory Fullstack Blockchain developers do everything, in practice, they only integrate with existing smart contracts, and not create them, which is way more simple. That means that it’s 90pct Web development, and only 10pct of integration with the Blockchain.

So if you have a background as a Web developer, this is the perfect path for you.

What I really like about this path is

• how versatile it is. You cover many different topics. So you will never be bored.
• It’s quite visual, since you build a frontend interface
• And you also have ownership over the whole Blockchain application. So it’s quite satisfying to think that you are the one that built everything
• If you just integrate with an existing smart contract, and you don’t create it, it’s less stressful, because you are not responsible for the money stored in smart contracts. If there is a hack in the smart contract, it’s the fault of the smart contract developer, and not you. There are still some potential security vulnerabilities in the frontend, but it’s much easier to deal with than with in a smart contract

Salary Range: $100,000 to $200,000 annually.

Smart Contract Development

Smart contracts are small programs that runs in the Blockchain. This is the special sauce of a Blockchain application. This is what gives the word “Blockchain” to a Blockchain application.

As a smart contract developer, you only responsible for one specific part of a Blockchain application: the smart contract. That’s it. So it’s a very specialized role

What is great about smart contract development is:

• How narrow the scope is, which allow you to hyper focus on a specific topic and become very good at it
• You are responsible for manipulating a lot of money, which can be very satisfying, because you feel like your work has a lot of impact. It’s not like you just decide some css color.
• Oftentimes, in a development team, nobody understand smart contracts. So your colleague to respect you more, and really rely on you
• Which also means that you are less replaceable. When a company needs to fire some developers in a Blockchain team, usually the smart contract guy is the last one to be fired, because he is so special.

It’s a great role for:

• Developers who are a bit more hardcore, who like to go deep in the technology. For example, if you are a backend developer, that’s a great fit.
• A number of smart contract developers started as Fullstack Blockchain development, then transitioned to Smart contract development

Salary Range: $100,000 to $300,000 per year. Yes, salaries are higher than for fullstack blockchain developer because Smart contract developers are more rare

Now, what about people who are total beginners, without any programming experience. Should you start with Web development first? I don’t think so, and I will tell you why.

If you think Blockchain companies are not open to juniors, why do you think Web developers would be more open to juniors? It’s always a bit more difficult when you are junior, regardless of whether you are in the web industry or Blockchain industry. So if you want to become a Blockchain developer, you might as well get started.

For total beginners, I would start by learning Smart contract development, because the scope is narrow. It’s easier to become competent on something specific than on something very wide like Fullstack Blockchain development, where you have a lot going on, html, css, javascript, blockchain, etc…

And finally, at the end of the day, the most important is to do what you like. I encourage you to just try the different aspects of Blockchain development, see what you like most, and go for it.

If you are motivated, you will get there. Even though there are some path that are more or less easy, like from frontend or Fullstack Web dev to Fullstack Blockchain development, nothing is set in stone. As long you train yourself and become competent you will find a job.

Learning Blockchain fundamentals

So the first fundamental to learn is Blockchain. This is required both for Fullstack Blockchain and smart contract development.

There are many different Blockchains, but the most important one for Blockchain development is Ethereum. This is where you have the most job opportunities, and where you have the most mature development tools.

Ethereum is not just cryptocurrency but it’s a full develpment platform for Blockchain application, the same way as web browsers are development platforms for web applicaitons. It’s a base layer that you will use to build your Blockchain applications.

Ethereum is the most widespread technology. It’s used for the Ethereum network itself, but also many other networks like Polygon or Base. So when you learn the Ethereum technology, you can apply your skilsl to many networks.

So what do you have to learn about the Ethereum Blockchain? Couple of things

Key Blockchain Concepts

• Decentralization: No single point of control
• Immutability: Impossible to alter recorded transactions
• Transparency: Every transaction is publicly verifiable
• Consensus Mechanisms: How networks agree on transaction validity
• Cryptographic Hashes: Digital fingerprints used a basis of many Blockchain systems

Concepts specific to Ethereum

• Ethereum network
• Data structure of the Blockchain
• Transactions
• Mining & POW
• Ethereum 2.0 & POS

Learning Smart Contract Development

Once you know the basics of Ethereum, next it’s time to dive into smart contract development.

This is valid if you want to be a Smart contract developer, of course, but also if you just want to do Fullstack Blockchain development.

When you are a Fullstack Blockchain developer, people will not expect you to be as good as a pure Smart contract developer, but at the very minimum you need to interface with existing smart contracts. So you should be able to read smart contracts and understand what they do, even though you might not feel confident to write smart contract code.

As I said before, smart contracts are small programs that run on the Blockchain. And these small programs can be created with different programming language.

Solidity: The Language for Smart contracts

Solidity is the most popular programming language for Smart contracts. So that’s what you need to learn.

Learning Solidity Roadmap:

1. Basic Syntax and Structure
   • Contract declaration
   • Function types
   • Variable declarations
   • Mapping and data structures
2. Advanced Concepts
   • Gas optimization
   • Error handling
   • Contract inheritance
   • Modifiers and access control
3. Security Best Practices
   • Preventing common vulnerabilities
   • Use safe patterns

Beside Smart contract developers, there is a separate type of job called security auditors. They are security specialists who check the smart contract code to make sure there are no security vulnerabilities.

You don’t have to be as good as security auditors, if you just do Smart contact development, but you still need to have a good base in security to at least not introduce obvious bugs.

Testing smart contracts

Next, you need to learn smart contract testing.

Tests are very important for smart contract. This is not optional. ALl your smart contract needs to have a test coverage of 100%, no exception.

There is a framework called Foundry that is very popular to write tests, so I recommend to learn how to create tests with Foundry

Deploying smart contracts

Next, you need to learn how to deploy smart contracts.

Once you have written and tested your smart contract, it’s time to deploy it to the Blockchain.

To deploy it, you will need to use a framework like Foundry.

And you will also need to use a Blockchain API like Infura. These Blockchain APIs will do the hard work of running a Blockchain node so that you don’t have to do it yourself. Blockchain nodes are notorously hard to run, and they require a lot of resources. So it’s important to delegate this part.

Learn Dapp development (Decentralized Applications)

So that was it for the smart contract part, next there is still the Dapp development to cover:

• If you just want to do Smart contract development, you can skip this part.
• But if you want to be a Fullstack Blockchain development, you have to learn Dapp development.

Dapp means Decentralized application or Blockchain application. A Dapp is just a web or mobile app that interfaces with a smart contract.

90pct of a Dapp is just web development, so you will need to know the usual suspects:

• html
• css
• js
• react
• nextjs

And after that, you need to learn how to integrate with a smart contract. The logic is a bit different compare to a traditional Web application.

For example, private keys the equivalent of passwords, are stored client side in software called wallets. So you will need to understand how to connect to these wallets from your frontend code. Metamask is the most popular wallet. It’s a chrome extension. You can just focus on this one.

Once you know how to connect to wallet, next you need to learn how to read data from a smart contract. Technically the wallet will provide you the connection to the blockchain.

And you will also need a Javascript library called Ethers.js. It’s quite easy to use.

Once ou know how to read data, the next step is to learn how to write data to the Blockchain. Again, you will need a wallet like Metamask, and a library like Ethers.js

There is also the UX aspects. For a user, interacting with a Blockchain app through a wallet is quite different than using a simple web applications. And there are some best practice to follow, like, showing a link to the transaction once a transaction has been mined.

Conclusion

So this is what you need to learn. Depending on which path you want to follow, Fullstack blockchain developer, or Smart contract development, some part of this roadmap are more less relevant.

At the beginning it’s best to just skim over everything, experiment, see what you like, and then do deep dives when you understand what interests you.

On November 29th, I am launching a brand new Blockchain academy, the 30 Day Academy. The 30 Day Academy is a course platform based on challenges. You will have one challenge per day, for 30 days.

And for the launch on Black Friday, I am going to do a special deal. To receive this deal, register with this link.

All right, that’s it for today, bye!