RareSkills

The RareSkills Solidity Bootcamp provides a dedicated learning environment to pursue becoming a solidity developer with a curriculum put together by industry experts who have years of experience in the field. With such a fast-growing space, it was often a doubt in my mind whether the materials I was self-studying were relevant. However, with their expertise I was able to fast track my way to acquiring the necessary skills to become not only an employable solidity developer but one who is above the curve.

The 1:1 sitdowns with industry experts such as Jeffrey Scholz, an ex-yahoo engineer who is a technical advisor for startups and VC firms with over half a billion dollars in assets, and Koyuki Nakamori, the Director of Market Intelligence at Avalanche, also provided a wealth of insight into not just technical skills but also soft skills that are arguably just as important.

Being that the program is highly selective, you will only meet people who are just as passionate, if not more so, about the blockchain field. Which vastly helps you stay motivated to keep learning and looking into new concepts you would not have otherwise considered on your own. In my cohort, I met Jesper Kristensen, a Blockchain Entrepreneur and previous head of research at a blockchain research firm who is a cofounder at the DeFi protocol where I now work.

If you were like me and don’t know the next step to continuing your solidity development journey, I would highly recommend you give this program a shot. As it definitely overshot my expectations!

Rareskills is the best investment I’ve made so far. I was surrounded by people who love to learn. I was directly mentored, skill-wise and career-wise, by instructors from big tech companies. And, I was able to nearly 10X what I was making just two years ago thanks to the bootcamp’s job interview prep, and their network and reputation.

The bootcamp itself was a grueling cycle of studying tough concepts and complicated systems, and then implementing what we had learned through a mini-project. It really helped that there were weekly guided discussions with other students and the instructor wherein you can help each other understand the topics for that week so you don’t fall behind too much.

As a freelancer for most of my career, I felt that the 1-on-1 weekly code reviews was the most valuable part of the bootcamp — especially since the instructor, Jeffrey Scholz, is a former Yahoo Senior Software Engineering Manager. The insights and advice given about how I code and my problem solving approach really helped me develop not just as a Solidity developer, but as a Software developer in general.

Besides the code reviews, there were also supplementary web3 career consultation sessions with Koyuki Nakamori, the Head of Engineering at Ava Labs. Her insider knowledge of what web3 companies are looking for, what the job interviews were going to be like and how to prepare, and what exactly to expect once hired were instrumental to the job hunting part that came after the bootcamp.

Rareskills’ help extends all the way to job interview preparation through interview practice sessions with Gayantha De Zoysa, the Head of Growth for Rareskills. The sessions helped me gain confidence, know what to avoid doing and what to aim to do during the interviews.

The culmination of my experience at Rareskills was when I had finally received a job offer for $80,000 a year. For someone living in a third world country, this was huge compared to what developers typically get paid for locally, which is literally almost 10 times less. If you’re a talented yet underpaid developer working in a third world country, this could be a great way to enter the Western job market.

This is a great example of what a BootCamp should be. A well-thought-out, up-to-date and relevant curriculum that covers every aspect of web3 development (testing, security, development, best practices). Fascinating discussions. Blockchain concepts that felt like black magic are crystal clear now thanks to Jeff’s mentoring.

I’m a software engineer with over 6 years of experience, and in my opinion, the course is certainly not entry-level. Assignments were increasingly challenging, although nothing that couldn’t be solved after some time. The mentors were always helpful when I or other students got stuck during those assignments.

Unlike other SWE fields, Blockchain is still fairly new and information is scarce, so having a place that collects everything that I needed to be able to land a job was a huge time-saver, not to mention the connections that were made in the process. I encourage anyone pursuing a web3 career to seriously consider RareSkills Web3 development Bootcamp.