10. Alain - Tech Lead @ Linea

Welcome to product3 - where we decode the art and science of building in web3 with the people making it happen.

Meet Alain (@Alain_Ncls) - Tech Lead at Linea and a brilliant engineer working on both the Verax attestation framework and Linea's core infrastructure. With deep technical expertise and a knack for solving complex engineering challenges, Alain has been instrumental in shaping the technical foundation of both projects.

In about 500 words, he shares:

• His transition to web3

• Development workflow

• His thoughts on the future of web3

What technical skills or knowledge areas became unexpectedly important when transitioning to web3 development?

People often ask me: “I want to get into web3, should I start with Solidity?” But the reality is that most web3 projects are still 80% traditional web development: APIs, databases, security, auth, frontend. Solid computer science fundamentals are still super important.

Coming from big companies, I learned to build in closed environments with limited external dependencies. That mindset is useful in web3 too: it helps avoid coupling your app too tightly to third-party services, and keeps things more resilient.

What’s new in web3 is the permissionless composability, working with onchain data, and understanding protocol behaviour. But at the end of the day, it’s still code, messages, and schemas. It’s more of a mindset shift than a technical leap.

How has your development workflow evolved to accommodate the unique challenges of building in web3?

Building in web3 forced me to rethink a lot of web2 habits. In web2, you control the full stack, including your database. In web3, you deal with finality, immutability, gas costs, and fast-moving protocols.

So my workflow evolved to include more decoupling, event-driven logic, and a clear separation between what lives onchain and offchain. For example, instead of waiting for a confirmed transaction to unlock a feature, I trigger optimistic UI states and reconcile them once an onchain event is emitted.

These days, I rely on shared frontend/backend SDKs like viem, powerful APIs like The Graph, and a solid suite of unit, integration, and end-to-end tests.

And of course, AI tools are now a core part of my workflow. From exploring codebases to generating snippets, documentation, or quick audits, they’re just built into the way I build.

What are common misconceptions about technical constraints in web3 product development?

A lot of people still think web3 means slow, expensive, and overly complex. And sure, that might be true… if you build like it’s 2019. But today we have performant L2s, modular contract patterns, fast indexers, and smart wallet abstractions. There’s a solution for almost everything.

The real challenge isn’t the tech. It’s the experience. And that’s 100% in the hands of developers. With the right tools, clean architecture, and a bit of care, you can build web3 apps that feel just as smooth as anything in web2.

And if you’re wondering where to start: web3 isn’t rocket science. It’s just common sense, good architecture, and regular dev work. If you already know how to build solid apps in web2, you’re 80% there.

In your opinion, what are the most exciting or influential trends shaping the future of web3 at the moment?

There’s a clear shift happening: we’re moving from infrastructure to the app layer. The foundations are in place, now it’s time to build apps that people actually want to use. That means better abstractions, better tools, and making life easier for builders so they can create real UX.

That’s why I focus a lot on building APIs, SDKs, and developer-first services that improve the experience and help apps ship faster.

Another topic I care about a lot: the MCP servers of the future. AI tools are exploding, but web3 APIs are still hard to expose properly to AI agents. We need to build server-side components that speak web3 natively, can reason about onchain data, and serve as reliable copilots for AI.

If you’ve enjoyed this micro interview share it with fellow web3 product people and give Alain a follow on X (@Alain_Ncls).

Got a builder in mind whose wisdom we should share? Please share!

See you in the next edition!