Rareskills is the best investment I’ve made so far. I was surrounded by people who love to learn. I was directly mentored, skill-wise and career-wise, by instructors from big tech companies. And, I was able to nearly 10X what I was making just two years ago thanks to the bootcamp’s job interview prep, and their network and reputation.
The bootcamp itself was a grueling cycle of studying tough concepts and complicated systems, and then implementing what we had learned through a mini-project. It really helped that there were weekly guided discussions with other students and the instructor wherein you can help each other understand the topics for that week so you don’t fall behind too much.
As a freelancer for most of my career, I felt that the 1-on-1 weekly code reviews was the most valuable part of the bootcamp — especially since the instructor, Jeffrey Scholz, is a former Yahoo Senior Software Engineering Manager. The insights and advice given about how I code and my problem solving approach really helped me develop not just as a Solidity developer, but as a Software developer in general.
Besides the code reviews, there were also supplementary web3 career consultation sessions with Koyuki Nakamori, the Head of Engineering at Ava Labs. Her insider knowledge of what web3 companies are looking for, what the job interviews were going to be like and how to prepare, and what exactly to expect once hired were instrumental to the job hunting part that came after the bootcamp.
Rareskills’ help extends all the way to job interview preparation through interview practice sessions with Gayantha De Zoysa, the Head of Growth for Rareskills. The sessions helped me gain confidence, know what to avoid doing and what to aim to do during the interviews.
The culmination of my experience at Rareskills was when I had finally received a job offer for $80,000 a year. For someone living in a third world country, this was huge compared to what developers typically get paid for locally, which is literally almost 10 times less. If you’re a talented yet underpaid developer working in a third world country, this could be a great way to enter the Western job market.