How would you approach breaking into protocol development as a final-year Solidity dev?

Hi everyone,

I’m a final-year student and have been involved in Web3 since 2021. I spent close to two years interning with startups and am comfortable with Solidity (writing, debugging, and deploying smart contracts using Hardhat). I have a working understanding of most major Web3 domains (DeFi, NFTs, and infra), and I’m now trying to delve deeper at the protocol level.

I took a gap from active industry work to complete my bachelor’s degree, and now I am at a point where I want to be much more intentional about direction and skill-building. Right now, it feels like many junior roles are either saturated or not hiring, which has pushed me to think more seriously about how to differentiate through depth rather than breadth.

Most of my earlier experience was with a service-based startup, which gave me solid execution experience but limited exposure to protocol-level design. I’m currently trying to bridge that gap through open-source contributions, though large protocol repos feel difficult to break into without clear entry points. I’ve also been looking for virtual hackathons to learn by building, as IRL events aren’t feasible for me at the moment.

I’d really appreciate guidance on:

How to choose a niche and go deep as an aspiring protocol developer
Effective ways to start contributing to protocol codebases without getting lost
Where to find virtual hackathons or beginner-friendly protocol work that builds real skills

Thanks for reading through and any advice or perspective would be very helpful.

I’ve been in a similar place, so I’ll share what worked for me.

First thing — you don’t need to “learn more Solidity” at this stage. You already have enough of that. What helped me was shifting from writing contracts to understanding why protocols are designed the way they are.

Instead of trying to contribute to huge repos, I picked one small part of a protocol (like liquidation logic or how fees are calculated) and tried to really understand it end to end. Even just reading the code and tracing flows teaches a lot.

For open source, don’t stress about PRs early on. Reading issues, understanding past bugs, or even writing small explanations of how something works is more useful than it sounds.

Hackathons can help if you treat them as learning exercises, not resume builders. Pick something small and finish it properly rather than rushing features.

You’re actually in a good position — most people rush breadth. Going deeper now will pay off later, especially for protocol roles.