Being a transformational technology, blockchain opens up a new career opportunity.
Blockchain is becoming the go-to technology for most businesses in diverse industries to stay relevant and competitive. With its ability to securely record business as well as individual’s information across decentralized networks, enterprises have begun investing heavily in this technology and implementing this in their business processes and development. While blockchain has been overriding its prowess in every field possible over the years, it has now opened up a new field of development, called blockchain development. It is one of the fastest-growing sectors and has created a new career opportunity for developers and tech aficionados.
The demand for blockchain developers in modern-day businesses is relentlessly escalating as companies seek to make new implementations, advance their existing systems and drive innovation in the industry. Before delving dive into the world of blockchain development, it is vital to understand the basics and familiarise with this continually evolving field in order to learn how it works.
Hence, what skills and knowledge required to become a promising blockchain developer?
Must Have Technical Skills for a Blockchain Developer
Blockchain Architecture
Having an in-depth understanding of blockchain, its functions and architecture can help boost a candidate’s excerption to learn and become a thriving blockchain developer. Concepts like cryptographic hash functions, consensus, distributed ledger technology should be at the tip of his/her fingers. As blockchain is a vast field to learn, going through the bitcoin blockchain paper and lending a little guidance will help strengthen the learning curve. A developer also must know his/her way around blockchain, the way it functions and how it is built.
Cryptography
It is an essential tool for safeguarding information in computer systems. It is the foundation of blockchain. The bitcoin blockchain integrates public-key cryptography to create digital signatures and hash functions. Therefore, having a better grasp of cryptography could be advantageous to become a blockchain developer. Many cryptographic methods like hash functions, e.g. SHA256 and KECCAK256, are used in blockchain in addition to asynchronous cryptography for creating digital signatures.
Smart Contracts
Blockchain and smart contracts have been an intriguing subject over the past few years. Since the release of Ethereum smart contracts has become a huge thing. Currently, smart contracts functionality has become a bedside approach for companies deployed blockchain. Thus, developers looking to get started in blockchain must learn about smart contract development. This simply involves learning network-specific languages like Solidity, Viper, Chaincode, etc.
Web Development
When a person begins his/her career in the blockchain arena as a blockchain developer, they are generally employed for the basic designing of decentralized applications. This means web development is a must-have technical skill of a blockchain developer. To have skills in it, a candidate must learn the basics of both front-end and back-end development which consists of things like creating interactive graphical user interfaces for Dapps, API handling, request handling, etc.
Along with these technical skills, a successful blockchain developer also requires a strong background in software development; experience working with open-source projects; experience working with large codebases; strong knowledge of data structures and algorithms; proficiency in programming languages such as C++, Java, JavaScript, etc., and familiarity with the working of peer-to-peer networks, aside from basic soft skills.
Types of Blockchain Developers
Blockchain Developers has two types: Core Blockchain Developers and Blockchain Software Developers.
A core blockchain developer’s role generally revolves around the designing, architecture, and security of a blockchain system. They are also responsible for the design of blockchain protocols; design of consensus protocols and security patterns for the network; design of the network architecture, and supervision of the entire network.
Unlike core blockchain developers’ roles, blockchain software developers are responsible for the development of smart contracts; development of interactive front-end designs for Dapps; backend development pertaining to Blockchain, and supervision of the entire stack running their Dapps.
According to the job searching site Glassdoor, the average salary of a Blockchain Developer in India is INR 4,69,921, ranging from INR 166,000 – INR 982,000.
