Advanced Solidity Curriculum
Last updated: March 2024
22-25 Weeks
Part 1: Advanced Tokens Topics, Bonding Curves, Staking Algorithms
2 weeks
Duration: 2 weeks
Topics: ERC 1363, ERC 777, the Synthetix staking algorithm, ERC721 NFTs, rounding bugs, frontrunning vulnerabilities, sandwich attacks, bitmap airdrops, non-standard ERC 20 tokens, bonding curves
Tokens and staking form the basis of DeFi, so we will start here. Although every developer learns the ERC 20 standard early on, many have an incomplete knowledge which can lead to bugs. We teach what security issues to watch out for. Two fundamental DeFi primitives are introduced: the most popular staking algorithm, and the bonding curve.
Part 2: Automated Market Makers
4 weeks
Duration: 4 weeks
Topics: Uniswap V2, token vaults, time weighted average price oracles, protocol fees, modernizing Uniswap V2, flash loans
Swapping tokens is one of the most fundamental primitives in smart contracts, so we spend a month diving into it here. Uniswap V2 is the most forked DeFi protocol in history, so by learning it thoroughly, you will have a strong insight into hundreds of other codebases. See our Uniswap V2 book.
Part 3: Fuzzing and Mutation Testing
2 weeks
Duration: 2 weeks
Topics: Slither, Vertigo RS, mutation testing, invariant tests in Foundry, Echidna
Unit testing isn’t enough. To create stronger guarantees for smart contracts, we need tools that can catch bugs we aren’t looking for. You will get lots of hands-on practice applying these tools to dapps you built earlier in the bootcamp.
Part 4: Smart Contract Security
4 weeks
Duration: 4 weeks
Topics: read-only reentrancy, msg.sender spoofing, faulty business logic, price manipulation attacks, access controls, input sanitization, CTF exercises
This is a month of CTFs and live security interviews. This will train you to look for behaviors the devs weren’t intending to be in the smart contract.
Even auditors and competitive audit contestants get stuck sometimes in this week.
Part 5: EVM, Assembly, and Gas Optimization
5 weeks
Duration: 5 weeks
Topics: Yul programming, Huff Language, EVM, calldata parsing, contracts built from the ground up in Yul, real world solidity gas optimization
Learn from the leading educators how to write gas optimized contracts. Our gas optimization book is the unrivaled resource for how to gas optimize contracts, and our best-selling video course on gas optimization has influenced dozens of live apps.
Part 6: Proxies
2 weeks
Duration: 2 weeks
Topics: Transparent Upgradeable Proxies, UUPS, ERC 1967, Gnosis Safe, Delegatecall, ERC 1167 Proxy Clones, Metaproxies, Beacon Proxies
Delegatecall is probably one of the most tricky aspects of Solidity, something many experience developers have an incorrect understanding of. To get a sense of the level of depth to it, see our solidity interview questions related to delegatecall.
Part 7: Applied Elliptic Curve Cryptography
3 weeks
Duration: 3 Weeks
Topics: Gasless trades, EIP 712, ERC 20 Permit, elliptic curve signature vulnerabilities
Gasless transaction is an important primitive used by Cowswap, UniswapX, 1inch, and many others. Digital signatures are also an important part of giving certain users privileges. However, they contain unique vulnerabilities if misused, so competent Solidity devs must know what pitfalls to avoid.
Part 8: DeFi Lending Protocols (Bonus)
3 weeks
Duration: 3 weeks
Topics: Price oracles, collateral and liquidation, DeFi interest rates models, governance, token reward incentives, Compound Finance, AAVE
Brought to you by the authors of the Compound V3 Book, you will learn every nut and bolt of this iconic protocol, then use your knowledge to quickly get up to speed on other lending protocols.
Note: this module is only available to students who complete parts 1-7
Engineers at top web3 companies and others have studied at RareSkills
The RareSkills Advantage: Quality, Efficiency, and Support
Our training philosophy optimizes the balance between self-study and institutional education, ensuring you learn more in five months than most professional Solidity developers do in a year.
Advanced Curriculum
We constantly update and improve our curriculum.
Cohort of 5
Experience a close-knit learning environment.
Weekly Live Classes
Interactive classes are more effective than watching videos.
1:1 Code Reviews
Identify and address knowledge gaps while improving your coding skills.
Expert Instructors with Weekly Live Classes
Our instructors are industry experts with extensive experience in smart contract development and auditing. They are dedicated to helping you succeed through one-on-one mentorship, code reviews, and weekly live office hours. And Benefit from their extensive experience and passion for teaching while engaging in interactive, real-time sessions.
Jeffrey Scholz
Founder | Lead Instructor
Jeffrey is the instructor of the only two expert-level Ethereum development courses on Udemy, both of which are bestsellers. His blog on Ethereum development has significantly influenced major projects in the web3 space.
While working at Yahoo.com, Jeffrey became the youngest Senior Engineering Manager at the company, building the video machine learning platforms and team from the ground up. He has consulted for dozens of companies, including the National Football League (NFL) in America.
What Does It Take to Join Our Bootcamp?
Solidity Experience
You should have at least one year of experience in Solidity. This is an advanced course that builds on the basics, so previous experience is crucial for keeping up with the pace and complexity of the topics we will cover.
Time Commitment
We expect our applicants to commit approximately 25 hours per week for their studies. This dedication is essential to fully engage with the course material and maximize the benefits of our comprehensive curriculum.
Collaborative Spirit
We believe in the power of community in enhancing learning experiences. Students who are ready to support and learn from their peers make the best students for our bootcamp.
Hear from Our Alumni
Our students, from web3 technical founders to lead solidity developers, have seen tremendous success after completing our bootcamps. With over 8 figures of funding collectively raised by our alumni for their technical web3 startups, their achievements stand testament to the quality of our programs.
"Despite having five years of experience in Blockchain, I learned a great deal from it."
We identified and addressed security issues that could potentially occur in smart contracts, making the program all the more practical and relevant.
Adam Boudjemaa
Lead Blockchain Developer | Co-Authored ERC-3643 Standard | Built & Deployed 300+ Smart Contracts
Pricing
Course Fee
$7000
Pay Upfront :
USD 6,000 ($1000 discount)
Pay Monthly :
USD 1,400 per month x 5
22 x Weeks Live Classes
15 x 1-on-1 Code Review & Mentoring sessions
Pre-course material
Course Material (Lifetime access)
Weekly Office Hours (Lifetime access)
Access to the prestigious RareSkills Community (Lifetime access)
FAQs
What is different about the RareSkills 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.
Brag to me about student accomplishments.
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.
Why pay for this course if you have so much free material on RareSkills?
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!
Do you guarantee a job?
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.
How long will it take to learn Solidity?
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.
I’m not ready to take this bootcamp; how can I prepare?
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.
How long does it take to become a Solidity developer?
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.
Is Solidity still in demand?
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.
Do you accept engineers without prior professional experience in Solidity?
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.
I’m an engineering lead, and I want to train my team.
Please contact us to set up a custom program that works for you.
I already know a significant amount of materials here, but I want to learn EVM and Digital Signatures. Can I take a fraction of the course?
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.
