Hey there and welcome to the non-technical recap of my journey from coding newbie to working in web3. If you're new here, I'm reflecting on everything I learn each week through self-study of articles, a software development boot camp, informational interviews, and more. I've created this blog series for others looking to follow the same path I'm on and to help reflect on what I've learned each week.

It's the end of week 5 at the Coding Dojo Boot Camp and all the technical stuff I learned is here. It's also the end of week 1 of my focus on learning about blockchains. I feel like I've learned a lot from all the articles I've read this week and I've had some helpful informational interviews to help better prepare myself as a developer. After the opportunities I've had to talk with professionals in the field already, it seems increasingly apparent that the best way to get that initial break into web3 (outside of my freelancing work) is going to be via work as a web developer and potentially specifically as a front-end developer. 

Articles

I tweet every day about at least one web3 article, here are the biggest takeaways from those articles this week;

• In the most basic definition, a blockchain is a list of transactions
• Governance of a blockchain starts with developers and founders 
• You can assess a blockchain by evaluating its:
  
  • Uses Cases 
  • Community
  • Transactions Speeds and Scalability
  • Consensus and Governance
  • Team
  • Roadmap
  • Market Capitalization / Total Value Locked (TVL)
  • Longevity 
• There are strong challenges facing broader adoption including trust in the technology and the skills needed
• The types of Blockchain networks include; public, private, consortium, and permissioned
• The layers of Blockchain networks are:
  • L0: internet, hardware, and connections
  • L1: the rules and parameters of the blockchain
  • L2: 3rd party integrations built on the network 
  • L3: this the application layer

And you can find my sources here:

• What is a blockchain?
• Who Writes the Rules of a Blockchain?
• Blockchain assessment: How to assess different chains?
• 5 challenges with blockchain adoption and how to avoid them
• A beginner's guide to the different types of blockchain networks
• A beginner's guide to understanding the layers of blockchain technology

Informational Interview

Web Dev

I had another opportunity to speak with a web developer from outside the web3 space this week and I heard about their journey from working with GIS to facial recognition software to being a web dev. Some of the best insight from this conversation was about always looking for new things to learn and how they manage to do the same with different informational sources. I appreciated the candidness in their assessment of the best and worse parts of their current role, gathering this information has helped me understand what the same role in different company structures can look like and how they can differ.

Web3 HR

The web3 HR informational interview was a very insightful opportunity about web3 and the industry from a non-dev perspective. We discussed tools resources for improving our knowledge and joining local events to network. When we discussed where I could find project ideas to help with the hiring process the web 3 foundation was recommended as a great resource. I followed up with what they would like to see built in the space, and we talked about accessibility and humanizing web3. I'm looking to find the time to reflect on what is currently available and what could be built to help this idea of normalizing web3 for people that haven't adopted the technology yet. I'm sure there is a fountain of ideas available in this area.

What's Next?

I'm still learning where I can fit in the best and what I want to work towards, with some potentially great informational interviews coming up I'm hoping to gain some clarity on what tech I should be leaning towards. As it is now, I am incredibly fascinated with smart contracts and their use cases. I still have another week of focusing non-technical education on blockchain but after that, I switch over to smart contracts. I talked about a roadmap in week 2 for non-technical learning that I am following where each section has a two-week period. Below is that roadmap.

• Web3
• Blockchains (we are here)
• Smart Contracts
• Crypto
• NFTs
• DAOs

If you'd like to join the learning community I'm building on Discord for web3, you can find the link for that here. It's a space that I am trying to build for myself and others to share their growing knowledge of all things web3. 

You can also find me here:

LinkedIn | GitHub | Twitter |  My Website