Founding Protocol Engineer - High-Impact, Autonomous Role

Consider, Inc.; United States; Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

Rift seeks a Founding Protocol Engineer to design and build the protocol, infrastructure, and reliability at scale. You will work directly with the CTO and CEO on multichain smart contract primitives, shaping the future of a lean startup.

The role offers substantial autonomy to drive crypto's next unicorn, with exposure to high-impact decisions and close collaboration with leadership. You will operate across chains and evolve the protocol as the ecosystem expands.

Qualifications

• Write high-performance Rust code for protocol components.
• Interact with Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana at protocol level (running nodes, indexing data).
• Understand DeFi protocols at smart contract level and assess risks.

Responsibilities

• Design and build the protocol, infrastructure, and reliability at Rift.
• Collaborate with CTO/CEO on multichain smart contract primitives.
• Drive architecture decisions with significant autonomy in a lean team.

Skills

Rust

Blockchain protocol

DeFi concepts

AI tooling

Crypto self-custody

Node operation

Education

High school or college dropout

Job description

Rift seeks a Founding Protocol Engineer to design and build the protocol, infrastructure, and reliability at scale. You will work directly with the CTO and CEO on multichain smart contract primitives, shaping the future of a lean startup.

The role offers substantial autonomy to drive crypto's next unicorn, with exposure to high-impact decisions and close collaboration with leadership. You will operate across chains and evolve the protocol as the ecosystem expands.