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If you’re interested and want to invest time and effort into creating a career as a Solidity developer, even from scratch and no dev background, then guide is for you.
With the onset of a decentralized web, the need for smart contracts development is a necessity. Smart contracts allow people the opportunity to skip centralized institutions and proceed with their transactions in a trustless environment.
With the increased popularity of smart contracts and their future potential, the programming language called Solidity has risen in demand too.
Solidity is an efficient and widely used language for developing smart contracts on multiple blockchains. Moreover, knowing the language can lead devs to work on smart contract functionalities on blockchain networks.
So it’s safe to say, the opportunities are abundant, but knowing how to get to that point isn’t so well-established. Let’s clear it out for you – read on. 👇🏼
What exactly is Solidity?
Solidity is an object-oriented, high-level programming language, which is quite similar to JavaScript but also has certain elements that you can see in C++ and Python. It is primarily used to create and automate smart contracts on the blockchain.
One of the best things about Solidity is that it is cross-platform compatible. However, most smart contracts that developers create with Solidity will be on the Ethereum blockchain. You can use the language to develop multiple projects, which include crowdfunding projects, blind auctions, voting systems, and multi-signature wallets.
Solidity came out back in the year 2014. But only in the recent past has its popularity insanely gone up. In the same fashion, demand for Solidity developers also continues to rise.
Several businesses are on the lookout for such individuals, offering Remote Solidity Developers an average base salary of $145,000 per year, as reported by Cryptocurrency Jobs. Woah.
Why should you become a Solidity developer?
If you are up to date with tech news, you must have seen the hype for smart contracts and other related projects. The demand for Solidity developers will clearly increase in the future, as numerous industries are looking forward to experiencing the benefits that come along with smart contracts. Hence, it is worth to have the skill and make yourself highly in demand.
It is true that Solidity is not the only option available to develop smart contracts. However, I encourage you to leave behind other options and focus on Solidity. That’s because it provides complete support for Ethereum Virtual Machine, hence you can easily proceed with code execution on machine level.
On top of that, Solidity is quite a flexible programming language. As a Solidity developer, you have the freedom to select Remix IDE online compiler or a command line compiler.
More so, Solidity is subjected to continuous improvements as time goes by. There are new features coming into Solidity regularly, which can unlock the true potential of developers.
Pre-requisites to becoming a Solidity developer
Before looking at how to become a Solidity developer, you should figure out whether you fulfill background criteria for it or not. In other words, you need to have certain skills to proceed with learning Solidity.
To become a successful Solidity developer, you should have an understanding of the Ethereum Blockchain. This includes the functionality of Ethereum blockchain as well as its use cases. On the other hand, you should have a general overall understanding of blockchain technology.
If you have the skills of a web developer, or if you are familiar with an object-oriented programming, learning Solidity will be fairly easy. If you don’t meet the criteria, here’s what you mainly need to look at:
- Fundamentals of blockchain
- Proper knowledge of Ethereum
- A programming language for a bit – like Python or JavaScript
- Programming concepts
- Command line to create new directories
Steps to become a Solidity developer
Here are the steps that you will need to follow to become a successful Solidity developer. Make sure that you adhere to these steps. They will make your Solidity learning journey easy and fun!
1. Web3 fundamentals
As the very first thing, you should learn the fundamentals of Web3. This is where you should pay special attention towards the basics of blockchain technology and smart contracts. On top of that, you should have a clear picture of what decentralized applications are and how they perform.
Along with that, you may continue to enhance your front-end programming and back-end programming skills. In the meantime, I will also encourage you to take a look at Solidity documentation. This is where you will figure out some of the most useful features that come along with it for the development of smart contracts.
🔮 Read more: How to build a decentralized website on the Ethereum Blockchain
2. Technical concepts and tools
When you have a strong understanding of the Web3 fundamentals, you may dive into the technicalities. This is where you should figure out the functionality of Ethereum Virtual Machine, and the basics on how to develop smart contracts with Solidity.
The knowledge you have on Solidity operators would deliver some outstanding results to you. On top of everything, you should allocate time to learn more about Remix IDE (Integrated Development Environment). That’s because Remix is the Solidity IDE, which you can use to write Solidity code, compile it, and even debug.
3. Continue to learn, build and ship
You cannot learn Solidity in a couple of days or weeks. It will be a long-term learning experience. Hence, I encourage you to allocate some time on a daily or weekly basis to continue reading more about Solidity.
There are some outstanding web3 resources and courses available to learn more about Solidity. Our hands-on courses can assist you with figuring real-world applications and where you can use your knowledge to develop a smart contract.
Be sure that you are sticking only to reliable resources to learn more about Solidity. If the resources you follow to learn about Solidity provide practical exposure, you can easily learn new concepts.
New blockchain technologies will also emerge along with time. You should be willing to explore and learn them. On top of that, you should remain committed to the Web 3.0 and DLT landscape.
Lastly, teamwork skills can surely benefit you so do join a community for web3 devs.
What is the job description for Solidity developers?
As a Solidity developer, you should be in a position to understand client requirements and transform that into a Solidity code. This will help you proceed with developing your smart contract projects. Depending on the client requirement, you may also need to develop new functionality.
On top of that, you will need to make enhancements to efficiency and stability as well. After you’re done with development, you may be required to do unit testing. Unit testing is done to make sure whether the functionality you developed is working or not.
Moreover, will not just be creating smart contracts. You will also have to work on dApp development. DApps are pretty much similar to ordinary apps that people use, but they exist on the Ethereum blockchain. Hence, dApps inherit the properties of Ethereum as well.
You will also need to make sure that all blockchain integrations that you do are smoothly integrated to existing applications, without breaking the functionality.
In the long run, you will have to collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams and product managers. This is where you will get a chance to uncover new ideas and develop smart contracts.
👇🏼
Making the decision to become a Solidity developer would not be something that you will regret. That’s because Solidity and blockchain development will be highly demanded job roles as Web3 advances.
Since Solidity is the most popular language used for the development of smart contracts, you can learn how to work with it without keeping a doubt in mind. You just need to develop the right skillset, so that you will end up with getting the best returns at the end of the day.