Qiskit learning roadmap for beginner

PennyLane Plugins PennyLane Qiskit
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I want to learn Qiskit in a structured and reliable way with the long-term goal of becoming an open-source contributor to the Qiskit ecosystem. However, I am struggling to find a clear and efficient learning roadmap focused on Qiskit development, not just high-level quantum computing concepts.

Currently, I see three major learning approaches, and I have tried all of them, but each has limitations:

  1. Directly reading Qiskit documentation

    • The documentation is comprehensive but very extensive.

    • As a beginner/intermediate learner, it is difficult to identify what to read first, what can be skipped initially, and what is essential for development and contribution.

    • Progress feels very slow and unstructured.

  2. Learning from AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini)

    • These tools are helpful for clarification and examples.

    • However, they are not fully reliable as a primary learning source, especially for internal Qiskit design, best practices, and up-to-date development workflows.

  3. QISKIT Video courses on YouTube (e.g., Qiskit Global Summer School)

    • These courses are excellent but mostly focus on high-level concepts and applications.

    • They do not cover Qiskit internals, codebase structure, contribution workflow, testing, or how to transition from “user” to “developer.”

What I am looking for:

  • A robust, step-by-step roadmap specifically for learning Qiskit development

  • Guidance on:

    • Which parts of the Qiskit documentation are must-read for contributors

    • How to move from using Qiskit to understanding its internals

    • Recommended order of learning (Terra, Aer, primitives, transpiler, etc.)

    • How to start contributing (issues, tests, documentation, code)

  • Advice from experienced contributors on what actually worked for them

If you are an active or past Qiskit contributor, or if you followed a successful path to contributing, your guidance would be extremely valuable.

Thank you in advance for your help.

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Hi @Heet_Bhatt , welcome to the Forum!

I’m not aware of the most recent resources for Qiskit learning, but if you’re interested in learning quantum computing with PennyLane the Codebook is my favourite resource.

Check out the Codebook learning paths to find the one that’s best for you! The special thing about the Codebook is that you can learn both the theory and the coding practice. You can also get badges and certificates for completing certain Codebook modules. We have heard really good feedback about the Codebook, in fact it’s used to teach in over 100 universities in the world!

Once you’re familiar with PennyLane I would actually recommend contributor events such as unitaryHACK to get into contributing. They have some guides on how to contribute here.

I know that it can be tricky to understand how things work in PennyLane since it’s different from the way of doing things in Qiskit, but it’s actually really quick to learn if you already know Python. I hope you decide to give it a try.

I hope this helps and let me know what you think of PennyLane and the Codebook!

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Thank you for the time.:smiley:

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