Protocol Engineer - Blockchain Interoperability

About the Role

We’re looking for an exceptional Protocol Engineer to join our team remotely and help us push the frontier of blockchain interoperability. As a Protocol Engineer, you'll focus on the on-chain layer of the Metalayer—Caldera’s high-performance, stack-agnostic bridge that already serves 75+ rollups and their users. Your day-to-day will involve architecting and hardening smart contracts that move real value across chains, designing security-critical role and upgrade patterns, and collaborating with audit partners to ship code that can safely secure hundreds of millions of dollars. This is the perfect role for an engineer who has shipped high-TVL protocols and thrives on digging deep into EVM/SVM internals, gas economics, and cross-chain message-passing. If you want to see your work deployed to dozens of chains and used by thousands of developers, we’d love to meet you.

What You'll Do

• Design & implement Solidity and Rust smart contracts across EVM, L2s, and SVM that form the core Metalayer protocol.
• Own on-chain security—role-based access control, pause/upgrade paths, and high-value asset protections.
• Drive audits: spec, coordinate, and remediate findings with top security firms.
• Collaborate with relayer, indexer, and frontend teams to define clear, developer-friendly on-chain APIs.
• Build tooling for on-chain monitoring, alerting, and gas/performance profiling.
• Research & prototype new protocol features (e.g., fast-finality bridges, ZK-verified proofs) that expand Metalayer’s surface area.

Requirements

• 3+ years engineering experience, including shipping production protocols with significant TVL.
• Expert-level Solidity and/or Rust skills and a deep grasp of EVM/SVM internals.
• Understanding of gas/compute metering on Ethereum, L2s, and Solana, and how off-chain components (relayers, indexers) interact with contracts.
• Comfortable owning end-to-end security: access control, upgradeability, failure-mode analysis, and incident response.
• Excel at systematic debugging, test-driven development, and writing clean, well-reviewed code.
• Strong communication skills and enjoy partnering with frontend, backend, and product teams.

Nice to Have

• Prior experience building AMMs, bridges, or MEV/intents systems.
• Hands-on work with consensus algorithms (Paxos/Raft, Tendermint, HotStuff, etc.).
• Familiarity with ZK proofs, fast-finality research, or cross-chain messaging standards (e.g., CCIP, IBC).
• Significant open-source contributions to blockchain clients, protocol libraries, or security tools.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary ranging from $190K to $250K per year.
• Full benefits package including health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Flexible remote work environment with opportunities for in-office collaboration.
• Access to cutting-edge technology and tools in the blockchain space.
• Support for professional development and continuous learning.