My Experience as a Raid Guild Apprentice

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together...”

My journey as a software developer started about 15 months ago. Coming from a non-technical background in marketing, I didn't know many engineers.

Knowing the right people won't make you smarter, but they can point you in the right direction and you'll learn more efficiently. Having a strong network of people is half the battle to success.

In January, 2022 I started a 15 week software engineering program at Flatiron School. My goal was to eventually work for a blockchain project, or to start my own.

During my bootcamp, I met somebody who worked at Consensys. His advice for me, to break into web3, was to join a DAO and contribute to open source projects. He recommended joining Raid Guild as a place to start.

When I completed the engineering bootcamp, I filled out an application for an apprenticeship at Raid Guild. A couple months later I got an email from the Guild.

Who am I?

I've been interested in crypto and blockchain for years. Starting out, I only speculated on prices. Eventually I became interested in how crypto actually works, so I began reading documentation such as the Bitcoin white paper and "Mastering Ethereum."

I understood that learning tech would give me a huge advantage in life. I didn't have much of a technical background growing up, but I was determined to learn as much as I could about crypto.

In 2021 I began learning how to code. My end goal was to break into the blockchain industry and become a professional in the space. I purchased a Solidity course on Udemy and got started.

Most Solidity tutorials I watched had a section about React. I didn't understand JavaScript, so I felt confused. This lead me down a rabbit hole into learning front-end development. In hindsight, I could have continued without knowing any JavaScript.

During this time, my main focus in life was rock climbing and mountaineering. An overuse injury in my elbow forced me to take time off from climbing. Sitting at home with nothing to do, I began spending all of my time learning JavaScript.

Unexpectedly, I actually enjoyed writing code. Coding also seemed to give my life a new sense of fulfillment outside of climbing. During this time, the voice inside my head was telling me that that I was the type of person who could succeed at this type of work.

After studying JavaScript for months and building an app (a simple game of blackjack built with vanilla JS), I decided to take a software engineering bootcamp. I chose a bootcamp that had a full-stack developer curriculum that focused on JavaScript, React, Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

Taking a bootcamp is a great way to lower your learning curve, but you can learn the same content from YouTube if you're motivated enough.

After I completed the bootcamp, I joined a few hackathons (organized by ETH Global) and focused on improving my front-end development skills. I felt prepared to work for a DAO after the hackathons.

What is a DAO?

Taken from Ethereum.org:

"DAOs" are decentralized autonomous organizations. These groups leverage Ethereum technology to facilitate organization and collaboration. For instance, for controlling membership, voting on proposals, or managing pooled assets. While DAOs are still experimental, they offer opportunities for you to find groups that you identify with, find collaborators, and grow your impact on the Ethereum community

Typically DAOs don't have a physical location (with exceptions like Empire DAO). Communication mostly happens on Discord. There’s no official boss or CEO and people can come and go as they wish. The more work you put into a DAO, the more you get back.

Most DAOs will require you to own shares, or assets such as a tokens or an NFT to gain access. This is analogous to owning shares in a company. In theory, by owning an asset related to the DAO, holders of these assets should feel incentivized to contribute their own resources (labor) to improve the organization.

Other DAOs worth exploring:

Some DAOs create open-source software that can be used as public or common goods. Public goods might also include tools that the DAO has created for its own use. For example, a staking contract for humans seeking membership in an organization.

Some other DAOs worth exploring are Developer DAO, dOrg, YAPDAO, Moloch DAO, MakerDAO and Yearn Finance. Each of these DAOs serve a different purpose, but some of them have overlap.

Developer DAO is like a social club where developers and non-developers work together on open source projects. It’s a great place to meet like-minded people and expand your network.

YAPDAO is another service DAO that focuses on non-technical work for DeFi projects, such as marketing and communication. YAPDAO is a friendly fork of Raid Guild.

Both MakerDAO and Yearn Finance are DeFi projects that are also DAOs. If you own tokens for these projects, you have the right to vote with your tokens. For example, if a new proposal is made about a major change in the direction of the project, you have the right to vote on the decision.

In theory this allows anybody who feels passionately about these projects to have a voice in how the project should move forward. If you disagree with the direction a project is going, you can sell your tokens and remove yourself from the governance process, or ragequit.

The first DAO was formed in 2016 and had a catastrophic failure (which resulted in millions of dollars getting hacked). Onboarding new members to a DAO is one of the biggest problems that people are working to solve.

My experience with Raid Guild

Today marks the start of my 4th week as an apprentice. DAO’s are still a new concept and are evolving rapidly. My experience will likely be vastly different from yours, if you decide to become a Raid Guild apprentice.

The onboarding experience

My journey with Raid Guild started by filling out an application here: https://www.raidguild.org/join. A month or 2 later I was contacted about an upcoming cohort.

During the first week of the apprenticeship, we met over voice calls in the Discord. We introduced ourselves, our backgrounds and interests in web3 (and beyond web3). We were filled in on what to expect by joining a DAO. It was mostly educational and focused on team building.

In the second week it was time to start working on projects. By this point, about half of the original cohort had dropped out and fell victim to Moloch (the demon God of human coordination failure). Many of us worked together on an existing open-source project called “Rite of Moloch.” It was an internal Raid Guild project that had been started, but not yet completed.

For the apprenticeship, the purpose of this project was to give us a taste of what to expect if we became full Raid Guild members. It also gave us a chance to see how well we worked together as a team. It was up to us to figure out what still needed to be built, with minimal guidance.

In a DAO there’s no boss. Nobody assigns you work, so it’s up to you to take ownership of a task and make sure you complete what you said you will.

Another major task during the second week was for all cohort members to acquire the DAO’s native token, $RAID, and stake it into the Rite of Moloch smart contract. The purpose of staking tokens was to show commitment to the process, but also to form a sub-DAO for the cohort. This novel idea was taken from the Moloch DAO framework.

Requiring cohort members to stake tokens into a smart contract gives a sense of commitment and ownership towards the DAO. At least it does for me.

My technical experience with Raid Guild:

Working on the “Rite of Moloch” project was a fun learning experience. My contributions were mostly with front-end development. The UI was built mostly with Next.js, Chakra UI and Ethers.js.

My biggest contribution so far has been creating a new route on Next.js called deploy-cohort. I built a controlled form with React, styled it with Chakra UI components, and built a function that uses Ethers.js to connect to the blockchain.

This feature is a template that allows anybody to create their own DAO and customize its settings. After the cohort has been deployed and people stake their tokens into the contract, they’ll receive a soul bound token.

Education:

One of the most valuable parts of being in a DAO is that you can ask other people for help. There’s a high chance that somebody with more experience can point you in the right direction.

Sometimes people will generously give a technical lecture to anybody who wants to listen. I was able to attend a smart contract developer walking us through a contract, and a product designer teaching us the basics of UX design.

Benefits I’ve gained during my apprenticeship at Raid Guild

I’ve already covered some of these, but here’s a list of benefits that come to mind by joining a DAO:

• Learn about crypto and web3 by working on cutting-edge projects

• Grow your network and build connections with industry veterans. Some people in the DAO have been working in the space for years. Having access to these people is priceless, especially if you're new to the space

• Improve your developer skills by contributing to open-source projects

• Make friends. We usually talk about work-related topics, but we also have a good time

• If you’re transitioning to a new career in software development, joining a DAO is an easy “foot in the door.” Working for a DAO is challenging, but getting in is easy because you don’t need to send in a resume and have formal interviews. As a recent web2 bootcamp graduate with no professional background in tech, all I can say is that it’s VERY difficult to go from zero-to-one and get your first job in tech. Joining a DAO is a hack which lowers your barrier to entry, if you want professional experience

• On the topic of starting a new career in tech: you will probably make little or no money working for a DAO at the start. This should not be an issue if you’re job-seeking. My bootcamp at Flatiron School gave me access to a career coach for 6 months from my graduation date. My coach has even advised me to work an unpaid internship or apprenticeship as a means to get experience. My experience as an apprentice at Raid Guild is something I’ve highlighted on my resume.

• Free technical education. So far I’ve attended technical discussions about Solidity and UX design. Someday I’d like to give back and lead my own technical discussion

• Joining a DAO is somewhat of an entrepreneurial pursuit. It’s for self-starters who have clear goals and don’t need external motivation to get things done. This is not a good path for everyone, but it might be perfect for you?

• Improve at non-technical skills. Web3 needs people skilled in project management, technical writing, accounting and more. In fact, I received some feedback from DAO members before publishing this article!

My future plans with Raid Guild

My primary plan is to continue slaying Moloch

So far I’ve been enjoying my time with the guild. I plan to continue contributing where I can, whether it’s code for an open source project, or writing articles like this (which is essentially marketing for Raid Guild and for myself). As my software developer skills improve, I plan to join official “Raids”, where I’ll get paid for my work. I also plan to get a full time job working in web3, while simultaneously giving value back to the Guild, which has already given me so much.

My next project is another hackathon. It's not directly for the DAO, but I formed a team with people that I met here and we'll be representing Raid Guild at the hackathon.

Conclusion

Joining a DAO is great way to learn about web3 and gain professional-level experience. It takes time and dedication to be successful within a DAO, but you’ll reap great rewards for your efforts.

Raid Guild stands out from other DAO’s because of the cohort experience onboarding process. Most people who go through the cohort process feel a sense of ownership, pride and camaraderie. You’ll improve your skills as a developer, (or whatever skills you contribute) and build new connections within the web3 industry.

If you’re looking to break into a new career in tech, this is one of the best paths you can take. Improve your skills and make a positive impact on the world.

If you're interested in joining Raid Guild, read more about it on https://www.raidguild.org/.