Complete Web3 Developer Roadmap - 2024

We're bringing together all the most useful information about building in web3 into a single page.

10 min read • By Remote3

Introduction

We're bringing together all the most useful information about building in web3 into a single page. You'll find tutorials to guide you through every step of the development process - deploying smart contracts, Dapps, and much more. From senior web developers to people with absolutely no coding experience, this guide is intended to help individuals of all background levels.

Being a Web3 Developer

Web3 development has multiple paths to choose. You can be a frontend developer, full-stack developer, smart contract developer, rust/solana developer, solidity developer, architecture,blockchain, protocol developer and so on.

Web3 developers get paid from ~$60K USD to over ~1 Million USD depending on the skill set and experience.

Checkout some web3 jobs:

Senior Solidity Developer - USD $110K - $170K per year

Go Engineer - USD $80K - $90K per year

Lead Frontend Developer (React) - USD $130K - $200K per year

View all web3 jobs

Let's get started.

Prerequisite - Computer Science 101

Before diving into Web3 development, we recommend you have a foundation in the basics of computer science. There are plenty of online resources available for this, including:

Harvard’s CS50 - This highly-rated course will teach you all you need to know to understand the basics of computers and data handling!

Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python - This course will introduce you to the world of computer science. Students who have been introduced to programming, either from the courses above or through study elsewhere, should take this course for a flavor of the material to come. If you finish the course wanting more, Computer Science is likely for you!

Blockchain Fundamentals

As a Web3 developer, you need to understand the technology at the core of this trend, blockchain.

Blockchain is a type of shared database that is unique from a traditional database in the way that it stores information. A blockchain stores information in “blocks” that are then linked together via cryptography.

Different types of information can be stored on a blockchain, but the most common use so far has been as a ledger for transactions.

In the case of cryptocurrencies, blockchain is used in a decentralized way so that no single person or group has control—rather, all users collectively retain control.

Confused? Fortunately, there are plenty of great courses online to learn more about blockchain:

Blockchain Theory 101 - This course will teach you the basics and potential applications of blockchain technology.
Blockchain: Foundations and Use Cases - Ideal for both non-developers and developers who want to thoroughly learn about the fundamentals of Blockchain. This course isn't limited to the technology side of blockchain; it will also introduce the philosophical concepts of decentralization.
Blockchain Fundamentals by UC Berkeley - This course will give you a deep understanding of and let you build your own blockchain.

What is a Dapp?

Dapp stands for Decentralized Application and refers to the applications built on top of blockchains. Dapps are generally composed of two parts:

A standard Front-end built using traditional tooling, such as HTML and JavaScript (including frameworks/libraries like React, Vue, Svelte, and so on).
A Solidity/Solana/Rust backend, is the part that distinguishes the application as a Dapp. This backend is what interacts with the blockchain you are building on.

Many popular ecosystems such as Ethereum, Gemini, and Solana, all have tutorials and introductions to Dapps:

Getting started with Front End Development

As previously mentioned, the front end of Dapps is usually fairly traditional web development. Fortunately, there are a myriad of front-end development resources on the internet.

While Google is an amazing place to find resources about front-end development, the problem is it’s hard to tell good from the bad. We found some of the best resources on the internet for you:

Although you can use vanilla JavaScript to build fully functional front ends, it is less scalable and doesn’t bring you those ready to use tools that frameworks and libraries such as:

Picking a JavaScript front-end framework will also tremendously skyrocket your job opportunities.

Is Back End Development Required to Become a Web3 Developer?

Understanding and being very comfortable with backend development is a must if you want to work with smart contracts. On the backend, you choose a blockchain, stick with a single language, and once you figure out the architectural shift, you can start to think more deeply about efficiency, optimizing for storage—all of those things that allow you to be a great smart contract developer.

However, it is not 100% necessary if you simply want to do front-end development. If you want to work with the blockchain and help create the foundations that makeup Web3, then there’s no skipping mastering back-end development. This area is hard to break into if you’re a complete beginner as mistakes made in back-end code have cost some companies millions of dollars.

It is also important to note that decentralized applications backends differ greatly from “normal” web backends. This stems from the fact that the Blockchain is used as the main source of decentralized data storage, whereas regular backends usually use databases such as Postgresql. The majority of technical principles are still the same, so it is strongly recommended to master standard back-end development before jumping into Web3 back-end development.

Here are some great resources and roadmaps to get started:

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is an open-source, decentralized blockchain with smart contract capabilities. The platform's native currency is ether. It was developed in 2013 by programmer Vitalik Buterin. It is currently the biggest hub for smart contracts and decentralized applications in the world, with its biggest competitor being Solana.

How do Smart Contracts work?

Smart contracts are self-executing programs that run on a blockchain when predetermined criteria are met. They're generally used to automate the performance of a deal so that everyone can know the result right away, without any third-party involvement or time loss.

Financial applications like trading, investing, lending, and borrowing are just a few of the uses for smart contracts. They may be utilized in gaming, healthcare, and real estate, and they can even be used to build whole company structures.

What is Solidity

Solidity is a compiled object-oriented programming language created by the Ethereum team that has similar syntax to Javascript. Unlike Javascript, however, Solidity uses inheritance and is strongly typed.

The main purpose of the language is to develop and deploy contracts onto a blockchain, and is becoming one of the most valuable and in demand languages to learn right now.

Web3 Developer Curriculum

Learn Solidity By Building Projects – Buildspace

Buildspace is simply “a short, weekend project where you'll learn some Solidity, write + deploy a smart contract to the ETH blockchain, and build a Web3 client app to interact with your contract.”

Buildspace also has an amazing discord community of people who are eager to help beginners break into Web 3.0. It is honestly one of the most fun and effective ways to learn solidity currently.

Learn Solidity By Building Projects – CryptoZombies

This one is my favorite ❤️. The goal of CryptoZombies is to teach you how to create games on Ethereum using Solidity. The course is intended for novices and begins with the fundamental elements. If you've never used Solidity before, it’s one of the perfect ways to start.

You might also like: How to find Solidity Jobs and Get Hired?

Learn Web3 By Building Projects – Remote3

Learn to build cool web3 projects for free from guided tutorials to showcase on your portfolio and get hired. Remote3 is a job board to discover remote web3 jobs. You can also find web3 tutorials and blogs to learn web3 on remote3.

Learn Web3.js

Web3JS enables you to develop clients that interact with the Ethereum Blockchain. It's a group of libraries that allow you to perform all sorts of operations, such as sending Ether from one account to another, reading and writing data from smart contracts, creating smart contracts, and much more.

Here are some of the best resources to learn Web3.js:

Learn Ethers.js

The ethers.js library is developed to be a complete and lightweight framework for accessing the Ethereum Blockchain and its ecosystem. Very similar to Web3.js but with the biggest difference being how they handle key management and interaction with the Ethereum blockchain which we won’t go into depth in this article.

Here are some free resources to get started:

Intro to Ether.js (Video)
Building an Ethereum Dapp using Ether.js (Article)
Official Ether.js Documentation

Learn Alchemy

Alchemy Web3 is another possible replacement for web3.js that's been built and configured to work seamlessly with Alchemy and offer several advantages, such as automatic restarts and strong WebSocket support.

There aren’t currently many good resources to use this library except its official documentation which you can find here. Thankfully it is very well written.

Learn Remix IDE

Remix IDE is a useful open-source tool that allows you to create Solidity contracts straight from the browser. It's written in JavaScript and may be used in the browser, but it also has a desktop edition that can be run locally and remotely. Remix IDE has modules for smart contract testing, debugging, and deployment.

Best way to get started:

Intro to Remix & Solidity (Video)
Deploy your first Solidity Contract on Remix (Video)
Official Remix Documentation

Learn HardHat

In order to compile, deploy, test, and debug your Ethereum software, you will want a development environment like Hardhat. It aids in the management and automation of routine activities involved with creating smart contracts and dApps, as well as adding extra functionality around this process.

Hardhat also allows you to use Truffle to test your smart contracts. This mainly means compatibility with the @truffle/contract package to interact with your smart contracts.

Resources to get started:

How to create and deploy a smart contract with Hardhat (Article)
Hello World Smart Contract with Hardhat (Video)
Testing with Web3.js & Truffle | Hardhat (Article)

Learn Truffle

The Truffle Suite is a collection of three tools for building decentralized applications on the Ethereum network: Truffle, Ganache, and Drizzle. Truffle is a development environment, asset pipeline, and testing framework for writing smart contracts.

Resources to get started:

Truffle Quick Start Guide (Book)
Get Started with The Truffle Suite (Video)
Your First Truffle Dapp (Article)

Smart Contracts Tests

Writing smart contract tests is extremely important to any blockchain application's security and efficiency.

We can use integration and unit tests to test the internal logic of smart contracts. We may write unit tests to verify function return values and state variable values and integration tests that examine the interactions between contracts. These checks ensure that inheritance and dependency injection processes are working correctly.

Resources to learn Testing:

How to Test Ethereum Smart Contracts (Article)
How to write Smart Contract Tests (Video)

Moralis - Firebase for Dapps

Moralis provides managed backend for blockchain projects and is the fastest way to build and deploy dApps on Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Solana, and Elrond (more coming). All Moralis dApps are cross-chain by default. Building on Moralis ensures that your dApp is future-proof. Even if new blockchains are invented, your Dapp will instantly work on any chain.

Whether you are building your first blockchain project or are already a seasoned developer - Moralis will make your projects easier to build, maintain and improve.

Check out the Moralis docs to get started!

Conclusion

The sky's the limit when it comes to what can be done with smart contracts. As we continue developing this technology, we'll see more and more amazing innovations brought to life in the Web3 world; the crazy thing is, anyone, including you, can make a huge impact in the industry and as a result, the future. Never forget the journey is the reward and that we live in a very exciting time that has never been seen before in human history. I wish you the best of luck in your Web3 developer journey, now go out there and build.

Looking for a remote job in Web3? Checkout Web3 Jobs