Advanced Solidity Bootcamp

We don’t do lectures — we do interviews that force active learning.

Our instructors do not read off slides or spend significant time doing coding demos. You could simply watch that on a recorded video of them doing that, so we don’t see much value in that. Instead, the instructors will spend a significant amount of time asking you challenging questions and asking you to explain your thought process while pointing out gaps in your understanding. The considerable amount of back-and-forth is why we limit our cohort sizes.

Yes, the process will initially be uncomfortable, but when was progress comfortable?

About half of our classes are the students working through Solidity challenges / CTFs, with the instructor providing appropriate guidance.

We are the only paid bootcamp with freely available learning material.

Many bootcamps try to “hide” their learning materials to encourage you to pay for it.

We believe everyone benefits when quality learning materials are freely available.

The most influential security researchers read our materials and say they are the best:

https://twitter.com/bytes032/status/1748561397368176937

https://twitter.com/realjohnnytime/status/1756265535241666733

https://twitter.com/0xcuriousapple/status/1732385098669142402

You get your code audited by some of the top auditors in the industry.

We encourage you to look up our instructor bios. They’ve prevented hundreds of millions of dollars in hacks collectively. We partner with the absolute best instructors.

The results you will get from this bootcamp will strongly depend on how much effort you put in. If you put in 100% effort on your own, we can help you get 110% learning results by working with us.

We don’t take credit for other people’s work.

That said, here are some:

giraffe0x got a job at Spearbit while at RareSkills (one of the most respected auditing firms in the industry)

JustEmil6 (hacker name honeymewn) placed in the top 10 in a contest on Sherlock on his first attempt.

Sashik placed top 5 in a Code4rena contest while a student at RareSkills.

Darian Chan got a job as a Blockchain security engineer at Coinbase through a connection in the RareSkills community (of course, our training helped also)

Please see our testimonials for more.

Our academy has trained protocol leads, CTOs, technical founders, heads of research, lead auditors — in the field of blockchain. That is, we don’t train a senior engineer at a web2 company and say we’ve trained a senior engineer. We’ve trained senior Solidity developers and higher.

Collectively, our students have raised tens of millions of dollars with over a hundred million dollars in combined valuation.

There are no gimmicks in the brand logos we put on our website or the claims we make about our accomplishments.

The very best in the field still come to RareSkills to level up.

However, getting results in your career and skills is 100% your responsibility.

We only share these examples to demonstrate we know what we are talking about when it comes to getting a job or career progression in the industry. It is a testament to the quality of our program that highly talented and disciplined engineers join RareSkills to add value to their self-study plan.

You do not have to be “top of the industry” to join us. We are not a gate-keeping elite club, and we do not wish to be. We want to accept your application, and if we don’t, we’ll tell you what to do for the next few months so you can become ready to join. But you do need to show you are serious; we cannot force you to put the work in.

Joining the RareSkills’ bootcamps will not give you access to “secret alpha” that we set aside for our customers — we don’t have any “extra special learning materials.”

The whole point is that joining a hand-picked group of fellow learners and working with an instructor will actively challenge your understanding of the subject rather than passively give you a presentation.

Some of our instructors charge over $10,000 per week to do security reviews, so getting access to them for a lot less is a good deal!

We understand our price point is not viable for some, but if you still want to benefit from RareSkills (for free!), work through our books and discuss them on our Discord.

On the other hand, if you join our bootcamp, thanks for your support! We would not be able to publish all the resources we do without you!

Let’s look at some cold, hard statistics: about 1-2 Solidity jobs get posted every day, but (conservatively) 5,000 developers are actively studying to join the industry. Additionally, thousands more qualified developers were laid off during the 2022-2023 bear market.

At current rates, it would take 7 years for all of them to find their first job. (5,000 devs / 60 jobs per month / 12 months per year). This also assumes no additional developers try to switch to Solidity and ignores that very little hiring happens in December due to holidays.

Guaranteeing a job only shows a disconnect from reality.

Of course, we hope the job market will be better someday, but we do not control that.

This is why the majority of our students are already employed Solidity developers. The learning does not stop just because you have a job!

Let’s drop some names: Solidity engineers at Compound, Consensys, Bancor, Lido, Chainlink (and others we forget to mention) took our Solidity bootcamp (not our ZK bootcamp, which has attracted an even more impressive roster) as employed Solidity devs who already had the dream job.

The total locked value our students manage is well over a billion dollars.

It stands to reason we are an authority on the subject regarding careers in web3.

A motivated and experienced developer can learn the language in a week. However, getting to the point where you have enough expertise to build contracts that manage other user’s money safely, it can easily take a year of study and practice.

Your first option is to join our Dapp Bootcamp. But if you’d prefer to learn on your own for free, we recommend first:

Go through our Solidity tutorial and do the accompanying Solidity exercises.

Finish at least six of the projects suggested on our list of Solidity beginner projects.

We recommend being prepared to study and practice for a year before you can be competitive enough to get a Solidity developer job.

Back in 2017, there were very few resources on how to learn Solidity, so just being able to program a token made you a rarity.

There are more developers applying for Solidity jobs than there are Solidity developers — this industry is competitive.

We’ve helped dozens of engineers get their first job as a Solidity developer, so it is certainly not impossible. But we’ve seen that most engineers aren’t motivated enough to sustain heavy study for the length of time required to break into the industry. Be sure this is something you really want.

Most engineers underestimate the persistence it takes to outcompete hundreds of other applicants for the same job.

It’s okay to study Solidity as a hobby; some of our students do. But have realistic expectations about what employers expect in 2024.

Senior Solidity engineers who have experience managing millions of dollars in crypto safely are in high demand. However, there is almost no demand for Solidity engineers without production experience. During the bull run of 2020 to early 2022, thousands of developers were onboarded to become smart contract engineers. During the bear market of late 2022 to 2023, many of them lost their jobs. As of 2024, there are more qualified Solidity engineers than there are roles for them.

Most of the students who take this bootcamp already have jobs as Solidity developers. If you do not have prior professional Solidity experience, you are still welcome to apply, but make sure you have sufficient time to handle the workload.

We do, but we strongly caution you to join only if 1) you enjoy the subject, 2) you have a long-term view about the value of working in blockchain, and 3) you are not looking for a “quick” salary boost.

Please contact us to set up a custom program that works for you.

You’re not alone. That’s why we included this question! Yes, you can. During the interview call, please let our team know your intention, and we will only charge you for the portions you are interested in taking.