Working as a Blockchain Engineer for the Swaraj Projekt

Working as a Blockchain Engineer for the Swaraj Projekt

Music on blockchain: How The Swaraj Projekt is helping indie artistes earn through NFTs

Outline:

  • Previous experience
  • How I got into this space, why Web3?
  • How I got this opportunity
  • What I learnt
  • Conclusion

Previous Experience

I have been developing websites ever since I was 12 but I started working perse in 2020 when the pandemic hit. I was a freelance web developer and used to develop landing pages for early-stage startups. The pay wasn’t great but it didn’t matter, I was gaining experience of working in the industry I always wanted to and doing the thing I loved while getting paid for it, life was great.

How I got into the space, why Web3?

You might have noticed that every startup landing page looks somewhat similar, I did freelancing in this space for a year but I eventually got bored of the repetitive CSS designing, I felt like I wasn’t growing.

Coming from an investor family, that financial acumen was always in me. Back in Jan of 2021, when I came across blockchain development, it felt like the perfect intersection of both of my interests, tech and finance.

Then came the dilemma, going full-time into Web3 or not. The space was growing at a non-exponential rate and if I took too long to decide the wave would pass me by, I had to decide quick. My dad I did a S.W.O.T. of me practising DSA to prepare for FAANG companies or me diving head first into this new unchartered territory. I think we all know by now which path I chose but it sure was a tough decision, leaving my childhood dream of working in FAANG to go into a space that hadn’t been explored much, and was full of uncertainty. Been a year and I have never been happier, never been more genuinely curious to learn more and more about an ecosystem, I love everything about it regardless of how unpredictable, mentally consuming and chaotic it may be.

How I got this opportunity

Twitter is the social media platform of choice for the biggest players in the Web3 ecosystem. Crypto Twitter is the term denoted to it. It is a space where everyone from the ecosystem shares everything, be it new product announcements or telling your users that you have been hacked, it’s like the go-to platform.

I have always been active on Twitter, just to give you an idea, I found 2 of my co-founders for my previous venture on Twitter and even got my first freelancing gig through it, it really is a magical platform if you use it properly and follow/interact with the right people:)

One day I was scrolling the chaotic streets of Twitter and came across the founder of CodingSheep, dmed (direct messaged) him and eventually landed myself an interview. They asked for my resume beforehand and we discussed my previous experiences and boom, 3 days after, I had the job. One thing I love about web3, people in this space don’t care about where you come from or which college you attend, all they want is skills and to see if you ‘vibe’ with the founders & the team, being a culture fit is one of the biggest deciding factors in a Web3 startup.

What I learnt

This was my first time working in a big team, especially where multiple people were working on a single product. Different people handling back-end, front-end, UI/UX and smart contracts. I made my first pull request which got reviewed by senior devs and then merged into production. The biggest thing was having ownership of the product.

My first time working on Jira, a project management software, and also my first time working with a project manager to whom I had to report. We also had daily standups at the end of the work day to discuss what we worked on during the day and finalize tasks for the following day.

I learned to communicate honestly, clearly and in an effective manner, it saved everyone’s time. This was the first time other people’s work depended upon me finishing my tasks on time so I had to give honest timelines and communicate when and why I couldn’t complete my share of tasks on time.

Conclusion

This internship has been an excellent and rewarding experience. It was an excellent opportunity to improve my personal and technical skills. I am grateful to Harsh, Ishaan, Prithvi and the rest of the team for welcoming me with open arms and presenting me with challenging tasks that resulted in my growth!

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