Principal Engineer

Who are we?

We believe Ethereum has the potential to solve some of humanity’s most crucial coordination issues. Since our initial inception as a research group, we have sought to scale both its technology and values.

At present, the most pressing bottleneck to the growth of Ethereum is its performance and scalability. We are building the most elegant solution to this problem. We do this in the open (under an MIT open source license) because we believe in open source innovation and its ability to accelerate growth.

OP Labs contributes to the Optimism protocol, an extension to Ethereum that scales both its technology and values. Optimism enables orders of magnitude of improved performance and scalability to Ethereum while doubling down on its commitment to public goods.

The Optimism Collective leads the blockchain protocol landscape, dedicated to fostering a scalable and sustainable ecosystem. Optimism’s ethos, in sync with Ethereum’s vision, tackles pivotal coordination challenges of the digital age. Optimism’s goal is to harmonize private incentives with public good, shaping a resilient future for the Internet. Optimism’s scope spans diverse areas like Gaming, DeFi, NFTs, and Enterprise.

Position Overview:

We’re looking for a very experienced software engineer with extensive web3 blockchain experience at the protocol/infrastructure level to play a crucial role in developing and securing the Optimism Collective’s blockchain infrastructure. We’re developing the infrastructure that enables the secure and permissionless withdrawal of funds from OP Stack chains and the Superchain.

What You’ll Do:

• Design unstoppable architecture and next-level tooling that powers the largest crypto ecosystem, ensuring everything you build leaves a legendary imprint on the industry.

• Lead a squad of engineers to ship end-to-end blockchain features - from concept to production - in an always moving environment.

• Champion mind-blowing, strategic initiatives that echo across the ecosystem (and sometimes the entire industry), leaving no doubt about your impact.

• Make the tough calls on tech direction—aligning bold decisions with business needs and our long-term blockchain vision—because we don’t just follow trends, we set them.

• Team up with heavy-hitters across Product, Engineering, and GTM to represent the entire engineering org, forging alliances that rocket our collective impact to new heights.

• Support the Head of Engineering by helping to set the direction for major initiatives and ensure they are driven to completion without oversight.

What We’re Looking For:

• Extensive experience developing in Go, Rust, Solidity, or another similar language.

• Blockchain development experience.

• Experience in systems programming, ideally in developing low-level software such as virtual machines, interpreters, or compilers.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to document technical details clearly and collaborate effectively with team members.

• Strong understanding of cryptographic principles.

• Experience with Zero Knowledge Proofs or ZK VMs is a nice-to-have.

What will you like about us?

• We take care of our employees. Competitive compensation, fully paid medical, dental, and vision, and a 4% 401K match—learn more about our benefits, culture, and all recruiting FAQ here.

• We take pride in the accomplishments of our teammates and support each other in doing the best work of our careers.

• Our team is a diverse group of people from varied backgrounds. We cherish our eclecticism and consider it a great strength.

• We’re fully remote, deeply engaged, highly skilled, and like to have fun.

• We think long-term. Our founders have been scaling Ethereum since 2015.