The attractiveness of blockchain engineering seems to be growing day by day. New cryptocurrencies are released to the market every passing day, and we can only predict that blockchain engineers will be in quite a high demand in the years to come.
At present, the average annual salary for a Blockchain engineer in the United States is approximately $145,000. However, on average, a regular software engineer only makes around $117000, which is why many software engineers try to make their way to blockchain engineering. So, let’s find out what software engineers need to learn to become blockchain engineers.
Economics will come in handy
A Good blockchain engineer should have common sense in economics. Economics is not something that is being taught in software engineering courses, to be successful, general knowledge of economics is a must. If you look at the developer discussions of newly developing cryptocurrencies, they talk about computer science only 50%of the time; the rest are economics. One example is that Ethereum suffered a denial of service attack because it had failed to forecast economic patterns correctly. There are hundreds of free economics courses on the internet. Consider trying them out!
Soft skills
Interacting and meeting people is not something software engineers do daily. But as a blockchain engineer, you will be interacting with a large number of other developers who are unlikely to be employees of your firm. So, it would help if you have the ability to interact with different people with different attitudes. Furthermore, you might also need to brush up on your communication skills. There are plenty of examples of lack of communication causing troubles in an organization. On one occasion, one of the big mining pools threatened to start mining empty blocks unless blockchain developers made some changes. Develop a few soft skills to cope with situations like this.
Read a lot
You’ll need to do a tonne of research into the subject matter. Developing things may feel like you don’t require a deep understanding of the technology, but I assure you that in-depth expertise will propel you to greater heights. Try reading the white papers on Ethereum, bitcoin, and hyperledger fabric as a place to begin your research. Also, try reading Mastering Bitcoin to gain insights into smart contracts, proof of work, Bitcoin concepts, etc. Try them out, even if you don’t understand anything at first.
Learn about blockchain architecture
A Blockchain developer should be familiar with terms such as consensus, distributed ledger technology, and cryptographic hash functions if they want to prosper. Consider becoming familiar with blockchain architecture and do it extensively. Most of the developers have a hard time with Blockchain since they don’t comprehend it in full. You can get help from many online sources like Coursera, EdX, and 101Blockchains.
A knowledge of some programming tools is a necessity
you’ll need to employ these languages to develop the technology’s fundamental framework. As a software engineer, you might already be familiar with programming languages and coding. However, suppose your coding knowledge is limited to one or two programming languages. In that case, you might need to consider learning at least two more programming languages. In-depth expertise in at least programming languages such as Java, C++, Solidity. and Python is a must to thrive in this industry. Apart from programming languages, you should also be familiar with developing smart contracts and Linux-based software development. To be a successful blockchain engineer, you’ll need to make several blockchain-based solutions. Moreover, it would help if you were both times- and effort-efficient to succeed.
Enroll in to a Blockchain certification program
You may learn more about the Blockchain’s impact on businesses worldwide by signing up for a certification program. If you’d want to know about a variety of platforms, such as Corda and Hyperledger, these courses might help you a great deal. You can also use online institutes which provide you certificates if time is a constraint for you. Blockchain training typically takes four months to complete if you put in 5 to 10 hours per week. Training is usually delivered in such a straightforward manner that you will quickly master the bulk of Blockchain principles and be able to add certification to your resume very easily.
