[Hiring] Founding Protocol Engineer @Nethermind

Role Description

As our first engineering hire, you will be the technical cornerstone of ChaosChain. You will take our proven architecture and prototypes and lead the charge in building, testing, and deploying a production-ready, mainnet protocol. You will work directly with the founder to translate a powerful vision into secure, elegant, and scalable code.

This isn't just a coding job; you will be a co-architect of the trust layer for the future of the internet.

• Core Protocol Development:
  • Design, build, test, and deploy our Solidity smart contracts, including the ChaosCore factory, StudioProxy architecture, and the RewardsDistributor engine.
• Integrate Cutting-Edge Tech:
  • Implement the off-chain components of our protocol, including communication via XMTP and permanent data storage on IPFS/Arweave for our Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG).
• Ensure Security & Reliability:
  • Write comprehensive tests (unit, integration, and fork tests), participate in security audits, and build robust monitoring and alerting for our production systems.
• SDK & Tooling:
  • Evolve our public Python and TypeScript SDKs into a world-class developer toolkit, ensuring they're powerful, easy to use, and drive adoption.
• Protocol Architecture & Security:
  • Work directly with the founder to shape the protocol's roadmap, research new primitives (TEEs, ZK), and maintain an obsessive focus on security through rigorous testing and audit preparation.
• Partner Engineering:
  • Collaborate directly with the engineering teams of our launch partners, like Gaia, EigenCloud and others, to ensure their agent ecosystems can seamlessly onboard and thrive on our platform.
• Shape the Roadmap:
  • Collaborate directly with the founding team to define technical strategy, prioritize features, and navigate the path from testnet to mainnet and beyond.

Qualifications

• Deep Solidity & EVM Expertise: Demonstrable experience designing, building, and deploying complex, secure, and gas-efficient smart contracts. Fluent in frameworks like Foundry or Hardhat.
• Full-Stack Web3 Fluency: Expert in TypeScript/Node.js with deep experience in libraries like Ethers.js/Viem, building SDKs, and interacting with L2s. Experience with backend services (e.g., Fastify, Postgres/Supabase) is crucial.
• Protocol-Level Thinker: Understanding of concepts like cross-chain communication, transaction lifecycle, and the challenges of building on-chain + off-chain hybrid systems.
• A Builder's Mindset: Portfolio (GitHub, side projects) that shows a passion for building. Ability to take a high-level idea and ship a robust MVP in weeks, not months.
• Technical Leadership & Ownership: Comfortable mentoring future hires, conducting code reviews, and making high-stakes architectural trade-offs without needing constant supervision.
• Velocity with Precision: Ability to ship fast to get market feedback while never compromising on security/testing.
• First-Principles Thinking: Solve problems by understanding the root mechanics (crypto/econ/AI), not just by copying existing patterns.
• Excellent Communication: Ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Requirements

• Experience with Python, as our SDK and the agent ecosystem are Python-heavy.
• Familiarity with The Graph for building subgraphs and indexing on-chain data.
• A genuine interest in and understanding of the AI/LLM space.
• Experience with Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) or ZK primitives.
• Experience building or integrating payment systems.

Benefits

• Build the Future: Work on the foundational trust layer for the entire global autonomous economy.
• Founding Equity & Impact: Receive a significant equity/token allocation and have a direct hand in shaping our technology, product, and culture.
• Work with the Best: Collaborate with core innovators shaping standards like ERC-8004.
• Solve the Hardest Problems: Engage with challenging problems at the intersection of cryptography, economics, and artificial intelligence.
• World-Class Ecosystem: Deep integration with and respect from leaders in the space, including the teams at the Ethereum Foundation, EigenLayer, Chainlink, and more.