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

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.

Thank you for taking the time to guide me, Amanda! I really appreciate it.

I’ll focus on building depth around protocol design and architecture, and I’ll join hackathons and open source with the perspective you shared.

I’m also actively looking to connect with projects and teams that are currently building in the space. Do you have any suggestions on where to find such communities or how best to discover teams doing strong protocol work?

That would be really helpful. Thanks again for your time and insights.

I’ll add a slightly different angle, because I’ve seen a lot of strong devs get stuck at this stage.

The jump from “smart contract dev” to “protocol dev” isn’t really about more complexity — it’s about owning consequences. Protocol teams care less about how clean your Solidity is and more about whether you understand what breaks when assumptions fail.

One thing that helped me was asking myself: If this contract went live with $100M in it, what would scare me? That mindset forces you to think about edge cases, incentives, and human behavior — not just code.

About contributing to big repos: honestly, most people get blocked because they try to contribute code without understanding the context. I learned more by reading old issues, PR discussions, and audit reports than by writing code at first. You start seeing patterns in how protocol engineers think.

For hackathons — I’d say use them selectively. They’re good for momentum, but real protocol skill comes from slow thinking, not weekend shipping. Even rebuilding a simplified version of an existing protocol and documenting tradeoffs can be more valuable than winning a hackathon.

One last thing: don’t underestimate writing. Clear reasoning in public (even short notes) signals maturity. A lot of teams hire people because they think clearly, not because they know the most tricks.

You’re asking the right questions — that already puts you ahead of most applicants I’ve seen.

Thank you @Web3Wanderer, I really appreciate the kind words and precise actions for me to do. I'll try to implement the things that you've suggested.

• Building simplified features of existing protocols, intentionally breaking them to find edge cases, thinking edge cases, human behavior and incentives assuming that my smart contracts hold real money of the users (that thought itself made me aware of the responsibilities that these "lines of code" truly hold).

Thanks again for you time!