Protocol Engineer

P2P; United States; Remote; USD 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

A decentralized finance organization is seeking a skilled Protocol Engineer to contribute to the design and optimization of Solidity smart contracts for various projects. The ideal candidate will have strong experience in DeFi patterns, a minimum of two years in Solidity development, and proficiency with Foundry. This role emphasizes high-quality code and effective collaboration, with opportunities to explore innovative DeFi solutions.

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of DeFi patterns and smart contract architecture.
• At least two years of experience writing complex Solidity smart contracts.
• Proficiency with Foundry, including cheatcodes and script execution.
• Experience with unit testing and fuzz testing.
• Ability to design clean abstractions and reusable smart contract components.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and optimize Solidity-based smart contracts.
• Provide technical guidance and design feedback for external developers.
• Explore and prototype new DeFi primitives and trading mechanisms.
• Participate in design sessions and code reviews.
• Implement unit tests, fuzz testing, and gas optimizations.

Skills

DeFi patterns understanding

Solidity smart contracts

Foundry proficiency

Unit testing and fuzz testing

Git version control

Clean abstractions design

Familiarity with Uniswap v4

Job description

The Uniswap Foundation is looking for a Protocol Engineer to join our technical team and contribute to the development of smart contracts for in-house projects, the Uniswap Protocol, Unichain, and grantee collaborations.

As a Protocol Engineer, you will play a key role in designing, implementing, and optimizing smart contract systems. You will participate in technical design discussions, weighing trade-offs between optimization, flexibility, and integration, while also providing design feedback for ecosystem participants such as hook developers and Unichain DeFi projects.

What You’ll Do

• Design, implement, and optimize Solidity-based smart contracts for Uniswap-related projects, with a focus on security, efficiency, and maintainability.
• Provide technical guidance and design feedback for external developers building on Uniswap and Unichain, including hook developers and DeFi projects.
• Explore and prototype new DeFi primitives, trading mechanisms, and smart contract architectures to expand Uniswap’s capabilities.
• Participate in design sessions and code reviews, ensuring high standards in code quality, security, and organization.
• Implement unit tests, fuzz testing, and gas optimizations to ensure smart contract reliability and performance.

As a Protocol Engineer, you may work on:

• Hooks and reference implementations for Uniswap v4
• Experimental swapping UX designs
• Indexers and graph traversal algorithms
• Composable DeFi legos
• SDK abstractions and developer tooling
• Periphery integrations such as liquidity management tools and swap-and-add functionalities

What You Bring to the Table

• Required Skills & Experience

  • Strong understanding of DeFi patterns and smart contract architecture
  • At least two years of experience writing complex Solidity smart contracts with an emphasis on readability, maintainability, and security
  • Proficiency with Foundry, including cheatcodes, foundry.toml, and script execution
  • Experience with unit testing and fuzz testing for smart contract security
  • Confidence using Git and managing version control in a collaborative engineering environment
  • Ability to design clean abstractions and reusable smart contract components
  • Familiarity with Uniswap v4 contracts and related DeFi protocols

• Nice to haves

  • Experience with Yul and low-level opcodes for gas-efficient smart contract development
  • Knowledge of gas optimization techniques
  • Experience with invariant testing for smart contract correctness
  • Public speaking experience for developer outreach and technical presentations
  • Familiarity with TypeScript for SDK and front-end integrations

About Uniswap Foundation

In pursuit of a more open and fair financial system, the Uniswap Foundation supports the growth, decentralization, and sustainability of the Uniswap community. Through grants, we're driving value in five key focus areas: Protocol and Innovation, Developers, Governance, Research, and Security. Our grant making approach is designed to maximize positive impact, bringing in new contributors to our community who focus on building new initiatives, committees, products, infrastructure, and more. To learn more about our community impact, visit uniswapfoundation.org/impact.