What sort of skills do I need to become a Substrate runtime engineer?

Question

I'm looking to take some courses in order to learn how to become a Substrate runtime engineer. What skills do I need and how can I continue improving them as I progress?

Answer 1

If you're aiming to become a Substrate runtime engineer, you'll need to know:

• What blockchains are and how they work. A good course on this is the MOOC by the Web3 Foundation.
• Crypto-economics and game theory — at least enough to help you design or understand the applications you're working on.
• Rust. You'll need to learn how to understand and write Rust code, there's no work around this. This page has a good variety of resources for learning Rust in the field of blockchain technology.
• What the relay chain / parachain model is and how it works. The best place is the Polkadot docs.

The best way to continue improving is by writing your own runtime logic, reviewing PRs and trying new things!

Answer 2

As a quick update, the basics are also incredibly important! The Web3 Foundation has launched educational courses with EdX (the same platform used by MIT, Harvard, Berkley University of California, Boston University).

The courses will start on Oct 27, and will be archived for your benefit:

• Introduction to Polkadot
• Introduction to Blockchain and Web3