This is a hard question to answer but I will try to give my 2 ..'s on what was helpful for me when I started on the Substrate path as a Polkadot Support Engineer at Parity. Maybe some others can share their perspective as well.
If you have a bit of a programming background and your goal is that you want to learn blockchain to become familiar with Substrate I would recommend the following:
Learn blockchain fundamentals with Bill Laboon:
Become familiar with Substrate Docs:
Do all the Substrate tutorials:
Subscribe & watch videos
Learn about the different pallets available to you. Read them.
- Use the full Substrate node runtime as a reference as to how to configure some of these pallets
- Pick a pallet and try to implement it yourself using the Substrate Node Template
Build stuff
- Don't be afraid to get your "hands dirty"
- Pick something that you don't know and try to learn it
- Become comfortable configuring and running nodes
- Build a pallet from scratch
Adopt a growth-mindset
- Learn a little everyday; this adds up
Keep up-to-date on what is happening in the Polkadot community especially the Element chats and Github.
Go deeper into Substrate:
Read the docs!
- Substrate Rust Docs
- Specifically, you can start with the Substrate crate:
- This is the Substrate Developer's bible
Read the code!
- https://github.com/paritytech/substrate
- This is the Substrate Developer's home
- You should be regularly poking around in the Substrate codebase to understand how things work; don't be satisfied with concepts, you should understand how it works in the code as well.
Stay up-to-date on Stack Exchange:
Learn Rust as you learn Substrate:
Find a mentor
- Blockchain & the Polkadot ecosystem can be complex; however, the community is thriving, there are Polkadot events online and all over the world - great place to meet others who are a little further on the Substrate path
From here, you could specialize e.g. Substrate Runtime Engineer, Substrate Parachain Engineer, etc. depending on the path you want to take there are a number of additional resources available to you.
And last but not least:
- Participate in a Substrate-related hackathon!
AND participate in the Polkadot Blockchain Academy: