Smart Contract Engineer (Protocol / DeFi)

Compensation: $180,000–$250,000 base salary + competitive equity

Location: NYC preferred; open to U.S. / Canada / Mexico

Work Model: In-person strongly preferred; hybrid

Overview

A fast-growing on-chain financial infrastructure company is building mission-critical DeFi protocols for enterprise adoption and is seeking hands-on Smart Contract Engineers to join its core protocol team.

The team has shipped multiple decentralized primitives across lending markets, vaults, and other financial protocols. This role is for engineers who can research, design, and implement production-grade Solidity systems, not just write contracts in isolation.

The Role

You will work on the design and implementation of novel DeFi protocols, with a strong emphasis on lending, vaults, and capital efficiency. This is a deeply technical role with real ownership over protocol architecture, trade-off analysis, and security posture.

The ideal candidate is fluent in DeFi mechanics, understands real-world protocol constraints, and has shipped main net Solidity code used by real users.

Key Responsibilities

• Research and design new protocol mechanisms around vaults, lending markets, and other DeFi primitives
• Lead protocol design decisions, balancing trust assumptions, capital efficiency, and security
• Implement Solidity smart contracts and develop comprehensive test suites
• Maintain high standards for code quality, documentation, and security in an open-source environment
  
  
  

What Were Looking For

Core Interests

Candidates should demonstrate strong interest and experience in one or more of the following:

• DeFi yield strategies
• Tokenization
• Decentralized lending
• Under-collateralized and uncollateralized lending systems
  
  
  

Required Experience & Skills

• Proven track record shipping production Solidity protocols on main net (not limited to hackathons or demos)
• Deep familiarity with lending and vault architectures (e.g., Compound-style, vault-based, or credit protocols)
• Solid understanding of AMMs, RFQs, aggregators, and cross-chain architectures
  
  
  

Bonus Qualifications

• Participation in CTFs, gas optimization (gas golfing), or competitive hackathons
• Experience beyond Solidity, including rollups or blockchain infrastructure
• Active DeFi user, investor, or protocol participant
• Knowledge of node operations, rollup design, or zero-knowledge systems
  
  
  

Compensation & Logistics

• Base Salary: $180,000–$250,000 (based on experience and scope)
• Equity: Competitive equity package included
• Location: NYC preferred (in-person strongly favored);