Kickstart your career as a developer in the blockchain industry | by Vedant Dwivedi | July 2022

by Arthur · July 20, 2022

The demand for blockchain developers, according to a LinkedIn report, has multiplied by 33 times in the last couple of years, given their increasing need of late in several industry sectors. The fintech sector has been the biggest beneficiary of the use of blockchain technology over the years. However, in recent times, many other business sectors have realized the business benefits that can be achieved through the use of the aforementioned disruptive technology.

Blockchain technology market size globally between 2018 and 2025 — **Source**: Statistics

Moreover, a career in blockchain in 2022 will promise a rapid career growth besides giving you quite handsome financial benefits. The annual salaries of blockchain developers and engineers in the US currently range between USD 70,000 and USD 200,000, with the average being USD 136,000. In fact, blockchain wallet users grew tremendously during the time period between 2015 and 2018, from 3 million to a whopping 28 million. Blockchain skills are ranked among the 20 fastest growing professional skills, according to a number of reputable research publications.

A blockchain engineer possesses the knowledge to create and refine decentralized apps and smart contracts while following standard blockchain development protocols. Blockchain developers also perform 3D content development, 3D design, and 3D modeling. However, the work is different based on the nature of the work, and the industry a developer works into.

In other words, a blockchain developer’s duties include managing the entire lifecycle of a blockchain application, from research and analysis to design and execution. These professionals must leverage multiple programming languages to develop functions, architectures, and interfaces for various types of purposes, such as processing monetary transactions. Aspirants can enroll in industry-relevant blockchain certifications to gain skills that are currently in demand.

Learn the basics of blockchain technology covering concepts such as cryptocurrencies, security, mining, hashing functions, consensus mechanisms, and decentralization. Also, be sure to learn blockchain components that include block time, block hash, time stamps, block index, and blocks. To learn the basics of blockchain, one can always enroll in skill-specific blockchain certification programs available online.

As a potential blockchain professional, you must have hands-on experience with blockchain application development. What you can do for that is to download the already existing apps and wallets and try to learn how they work or work. Spend time creating and using private keys and wallet addresses, and learn to transfer value as crypto across multiple blockchains.

The other critical things to gain hands-on experience will include understanding and interacting with smart contract platforms and exchanges, learning data and transaction recording. For help, an aspirant can network with relevant blockchain developers on online forums. Remember that the blockchain industry is growing big with each passing day, and therefore a multitude of job opportunities are waiting for you. Just acquire the necessary skills and you will be welcomed into the commercial side of the blockchain world.

Blockchain technology is a practiced art. You will never get good at it unless you practice it a lot. Coding is an integral part of a blockchain professional’s work life. And that is why you as an aspirant must prepare and practice it as regularly as possible. Learn the basics of programming languages like JavaScript and C++ and also make sure to understand the application part of it i.e. how these languages will contribute to blockchain coding. Learn about the coding languages most compatible to optimize blockchain performance. Code analysis is another important facet of blockchain development that you should learn.