How to Become a Blockchain Engineer? | Hacker News Reader

How to Become a Blockchain Engineer?

30 pointsbihan25 comments

Web3 is very interesting. Avg. BE makes about $160k, is it worth to get into web3 now. If so what's the best way?

1. Rewrite everything in Go or Rust for the sake of it. 2. Pretend AWS and DNS do not exist and that the web is decentralized. 3. Read blockchain. Lots of it. Write about it more than you read about it. 4. Success. Let the big bucks rain on you.

But seriously, are you considering getting into this just for the bucks? I'd suggest you check out what Moxie and other respectable folks have to say about this first, e.g:

https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

You can read about many more fiascos online. I think there are a million more interesting things to get into. The nice thing about recessions is that it cuts out much of the BS, and we've already seen quite a few of these startups go down for good.

There's an emphasis on bad NFTs in this article, but some NFT projects encode the traits of the collectible into the token itself, or host images from a decentralised source like IPFS. Bored Apes do this, for instance.

Yes, there's are bad ways to misuse NFTs and do things incorrectly. That shouldn't mean that the entire concept is flawed.

I have been in the bitcoin/blockchain space since 2010. This joking advice is actually not half bad.

Not a bad advice although a bit painted with pessimism I must add.

It is an unfortunate result of relative lack of regulation that there are a lot of fiascos / scams happening. That doesn't mean there aren't respectable companies / uses. What I personally notice is that when web3 isn't the only way to solve a problem, the sceptics come up in arms and say "see, don't use web3". In my opinion that is a bit of an overkill. Ideas such as ICOs, NFTs etc. are quite interesting ideas; you have people paying a ton of money to speculate on monkey images but on the flip side you also have stuff like ENS.

I think being aware of the risks but having a bit of optimism that with increased regulation & hopefully the gold rush dying out a bit, we'll have a much more healthier ecosystem when it comes to this technology.

Obviously personal opinion and all; so feel free to disagree of course.

I have some hope in Solid (https://solidproject.org/), if only because Tim Berners-Lee is spearheading the project and Bruce Schneier leading the security/crypto side of it.

In the true spirit of Web3 you can simply do the Ethereum tutorial, "read" some whitepapers (they aren't meant to be though about deeply anyway) and start adverstising yourself as a blockchain expert.

Don't overthink it, the people you'll work with are already grifters themselves.

Determine what part of the stack you want to be on

Most projects are smart contracts, so thats Solidity and browser frontends like React

whereas in the Solana ecosystem both the node software and the smart contracts are written in Rust

amongst smart contracts there are about a dozen sectors:

Lending

Staking

Insurance

Options

Futures

AMMs

Optimizers

All the way over to NFTs

Within NFTs there are about 5 distinct sectors too, with the most action and capital occurring in the NFT collections space, followed by NFT marketplaces

and then after all that there are Web 2.0 style SaaS companies that provide services to web 3 customers for subscription fees. thats probably the most boring because they cant juice your compensation with tokens or publicly traded shares.

so pick your sector first.

I don't get it. Developers in USA do make already around $160K, isn't it?

Yes, but they're stuck working on Web2 /s

OP might not be in USA; here in my country Blockchain jobs are usually remote for US/Europe and paid in USD/Crypto and thus more paired with 1st world country salaries, instead of local currency with local salaries.

I started my path as BE 5 years ago and now I run a blockchain company.

My strategy was: 1 - learn just the basics on each vertical (bitcoin, EVM, smart contracts, consensus protocols, game theory) - it wasn't difficult having a background as engineer 2 - get a job as PM/PO to be in touch with as many projects as I can 3 - get a deep understanding of the market needs 4 - start working as low level developer on a particular (selected) project, to understand the core and become an expert 5 - manage my own team to sell services (outsourcing) to other entrepreneurs 6 - scale num.5

I share with you a doc I wrote a time ago, describing the roadmap I propose to learn the basics: https://medium.com/rather-labs/the-roadmap-to-become-a-block...

Also, if you want to check my company, you can do it at ratherlabs.com

I wish you the best on this exciting path!

Stuff you learn in "web2" translates to web3, but the opposite is not true: the tolerance for risk and failure in the crypto space is just so much higher than anywhere else, that engineers who learn in that environment never really have a chance to develop the baseline technical skill expected by any other part of industry.

It's really a tragedy that the pump-and-dump web3 space is siphoning off so many entry-level programmers. When the music stops, it's going to be a lot of work for those people to transition elsewhere.

What do you mean by tolerance for risk and failure is so much higher?

Bussines wise or on technical side ?

Honestly I've seen it other way. Or at least engineers that i follow didn't exhibit such traits

Both business and technical.

What's considered acceptable risk in the crypto space -- operational, programmatic, business, systemic, anything -- has been far far beyond the threshold of acceptable risk in any non-crypto organization I've ever been a part of. This experience has been consistent across the ecosystems I've participated in, which are Ethereum, Bitcoin, Cosmos, and Stellar.

This is a fairly jaded take, but my impression is that "blockchain engineers" often expect to be able to work pseudonymously, which implies that credentials and reputation are not as important as in other business domains. One consequence of this is that it's probably easier to break into the field if you perform well in an interview; another consequence is rampant insider fraud.

https://buildspace.so/ is a great learning resource

Build something new and exciting using blockchain and web3

> Avg. BE makes about $160k, is it worth to get into web3 now

That number is probably old, before the crypto bloodbath of the last few months.

I also don't feel it's a number that can be accurate at all without including a location.

Find the job that doesn’t need web3 experience to join. They do exist.

Get involved with a DAO and learn by starting with the smallest tasks.

Developer DAO is a good place to start

What are you doing right now? Sounds like you are chasing money.

Blockchain engineers don't care about users or hackers

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