Principal Blockchain Platform Engineer - Digital Assets

Job Description:

Principal Blockchain Platform Engineer (AWS/EKS, Bitcoin/Litecoin/Ethereum)

The Role

We’re seeking a Principal Blockchain Infrastructure Engineer to design, build, and operate production‑grade blockchain infrastructure on AWS and Kubernetes (EKS). You’ll manage the full lifecycle of node operations for Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum—ensuring performance, reliability, security, and scalability. This role is critical for delivering robust RPC services, validator operations, and data pipelines.

The Expertise and Skills You Bring

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field required

• 8+ years in infrastructure/SRE/DevOps roles, with 3+ years operating blockchain nodes in production.

• Deep expertise with AWS (EKS, EC2, EBS/EFS, VPC, NLB/ALB, CloudWatch, IAM, KMS) and Kubernetes/EKS.

• Strong IaC: Terraform, Helm; CI/CD pipelines.

• Hands‑on experience with:

  • Staking validator operations

  • Ethereum: execution + consensus clients; JWT, checkpoint sync, archival strategies.

  • Bitcoin/Litecoin: bitcoind/litecoind, txindex, mempool policies, pruning/archive.

• Observability: Prometheus/Grafana, Splunk, Datadog, alerting, log aggregation.

• Experience with hardfork upgrade planning and reorg mitigation strategies.

• Experience with high‑throughput RPC products and global traffic management.

• Programming proficiency in Python, Bash; strong Linux systems skills.

What You’ll Do

• Architect and maintain containerized blockchain nodes on AWS/EKS using Terraform, Helm, and CI/CD pipelines.

• Operate Bitcoin/Litecoin full/archive nodes (UTXO set, mempool, pruning, peer policies) with high‑availability RPC and optimized disk I/O.

• Operate Ethereum execution clients (e.g., Geth, Nethermind, Erigon, Besu) and consensus clients (e.g., Prysm, Lighthouse, Teku, Nimbus); manage beacon/execution pairings, JWT secrets, and checkpoint sync.

• Implement observability and telemetry using Prometheus/Grafana, Splunk, and Datadog for metrics, logs, and distributed tracing.

• Own backup/restore/DR strategies: snapshots, archive retention, multi‑AZ and multi‑region failover.

• Ensure hardfork readiness: plan and execute client upgrades, compatibility testing, and rollback strategies.

• Monitor and mitigate chain reorganizations (reorgs): implement alerts, RPC consistency checks, and failover strategies for deep reorg scenarios.

• Lead incident response, post‑mortems, and resilience testing; drive SRE practices and continuous improvement.

• Stay current with node software packaging and releases: track upstream client updates, security patches, and dependency changes.

• Implement zero-downtime deployment strategies for node upgrades using rolling updates, canary releases, and Kubernetes best practices.

• Participate in on-call rotation to provide 24/7 support for production incidents, ensuring rapid response and resolution within defined SLAs.

The Team

Fidelity Digital Assets®, a Fidelity Investments Company, is developing a full-service enterprise-grade platform for storing, trading, and servicing digital assets, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Fidelity Digital Assets® adopts an entrepreneurial culture and startup approach while serving as one of the most innovative business units within Fidelity Investments. Our global, diverse team of hundreds of forward-thinking professionals lead with agility and creativity to build solutions that bridge the gap between traditional institutional investors and their exposure to digital assets. The firm’s tenure and experience across multiple business lines present our employees with unprecedented access to knowledge, technology, and resources that help our team reshape the future of finance.

Within

Fidelity Digital Assets®, the Wallet Blockchain Platform Team is responsible for the backend services and APIs that support digital assets transactions on networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. The team will also lead tokenization efforts.

The base salary range for this position is $107,000-216,000 USD per year.  

Placement in the range will vary based on job responsibilities and scope, geographic location, candidate’s relevant experience, and other factors.

Base salary is only part of the total compensation package. Depending on the position and eligibility requirements, the offer package may also include bonus or other variable compensation.   

We offer a wide range of benefits to meet your evolving needs and help you live your best life at work and at home.  These benefits include comprehensive health care coverage and emotional well-being support, market-leading retirement, generous paid time off and parental leave, charitable giving employee match program, and educational assistance including student loan repayment, tuition reimbursement, and learning resources to develop your career.  Note, the application window closes when the position is filled or unposted.

Please be advised that Fidelity’s business is governed by the provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the Investment Company Act of 1940, ERISA, numerous state laws governing securities, investment and retirement-related financial activities and the rules and regulations of numerous self-regulatory organizations, including FINRA, among others. Those laws and regulations may restrict Fidelity from hiring and/or associating with individuals with certain Criminal Histories.

Most roles at Fidelity are Hybrid, requiring associates to work onsite every other week (all business days, M-F) in a Fidelity office. This does not apply to Remote or fully Onsite roles. Please consult with your recruiter for the specific expectations for this position.

Certifications:

Category:

Information Technology