Founding DeFi Protocol Engineer (Smart Contracts)

Index Industries; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Index Industries in Chicago, IL is seeking a Protocol Engineer to own the smart contract layer from architecture through mainnet launch and beyond. You will work closely with a quant team that publishes the index on-chain and with a DeFi PM driving ecosystem integrations.

This is a founding hire with high autonomy and a direct line to the founding team. Responsibilities include designing, deploying core protocol contracts, building adapters for liquidity and yield distribution, and steering the

Qualifications

• Shipped at least one token or DeFi protocol to mainnet and maintained it post-launch.
• Strong Solidity production contracts with awareness of common failure modes and attack vectors.
• Hands-on experience with yield-bearing vaults (ERC-4626 or equivalent) or similar mechanisms.
• Experience writing oracle consumer contracts with staleness checks, circuit breakers, and fallback logic for non-standard feeds.
• Experience integrating DeFi protocols (Pendle adapters, lending protocols, or DEX pools).
• Ability to work as the sole protocol engineer initially and onboard others when needed.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, test, and deploy the core protocol contracts: USHP (ERC-20), sUSHP (ERC-4626), yield distributor with Props tier-weighting, and oracle consumer with staleness checks and circuit breakers.
• Write and deploy DeFi protocol adapters: Pendle SY interface for yield tokenization, oracle adapters for Aave/Morpho collateral onboarding, and Uniswap v3/Curve liquidity pool configuration.
• Own the full audit process: scope, auditor selection, remediation, and deployment playbooks.
• Define the threat model and security controls — including oracle manipulation resistance for a custom non-standard feed, access control, and economic attack vectors.
• Set up post-launch monitoring and incident response for all on-chain components.
• Serve as the technical interface between smart contracts and the backend, frontend, and quant teams.
• Drive DeFi protocol governance submissions (Aave, Morpho) including risk parameter documentation and oracle methodology explanations to protocol risk teams.

Skills

Solidity

Mainnet deployment

Smart contract security

DeFi protocol integration

Token/yield protocols

Oracle integration

Job description

Index Industries in Chicago, IL is seeking a Protocol Engineer to own the smart contract layer from architecture through mainnet launch and beyond. You will work closely with a quant team that publishes the index on-chain and with a DeFi PM driving ecosystem integrations.

This is a founding hire with high autonomy and a direct line to the founding team. Responsibilities include designing, deploying core protocol contracts, building adapters for liquidity and yield distribution, and steering the