VP, Protocol Engineer (Validators)

You will design, deploy, and manage validator nodes and related infrastructure to ensure high availability, security, and performance. You will build and improve automation workflows, implement monitoring and observability, debug distributed blockchains and protocols, and apply security best practices. You will participate in on-call rotations, develop automation scripts and infrastructure-as-code, troubleshoot cross-system application flows, and collaborate with other teams to improve incident response and operational tooling. You will also research emerging web3 trends and identify opportunities to improve validator operations.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and maintain highly available, scalable and secure validator infrastructure
• Deploy and manage validator nodes and related blockchain participation systems
• Automate deployment, scaling and recovery processes
• Implement monitoring and observability to ensure health and performance
• Debug distributed blockchains and protocols to improve participation
• Identify and implement tooling and process improvements for operations
• Participate in and improve domain-specific on-call rotations
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams on incident response and infrastructure changes

Requirements

• Prior software engineering or application development experience in modern programming languages (.NET, Go, Rust, C/C++)
• Ability to script in high-level scripting languages such as Python, Perl or bash
• Experience working with blockchain infrastructure or strong knowledge of blockchain domain including proof-of-stake consensus and RPC
• Familiarity with compute infrastructure systems, tooling, observability and debugging strategies
• Troubleshooting expertise across server, network and application layers
• Working knowledge of Linux systems and system performance optimization
• Expertise with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and virtualization technologies (VMWare, KVM, Docker)
• Hands-on experience with monitoring and observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, Datadog or LogDNA
• Conceptual knowledge of security best practices including encryption, access control and network security
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Strong problem solving skills
• 4+ years of software engineering experience
• Hands-on experience operating Solana, Ethereum or similar validation infrastructure or RPC (preferred)
• Experience with Kubernetes or similar orchestration systems (preferred)
• Experience defining infrastructure as code with Terraform (preferred)

Benefits

• Company-paid health and protective benefits for employees and their eligible dependents
• Competitive paid time off
• Free virtual coaching sessions through Headspace
• Free daily snacks in-office