Protocol Security Researcher - AI-Driven DeFi Risk

ZZZ-WLSN-PROBE; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Aave Labs is seeking a Protocol Security Researcher to bolster its internal protocol security function. This role sits at the intersection of smart contract security, protocol design, adversarial research, and AI-assisted review, focusing on reducing protocol risk continuously.

The ideal candidate has 5+ years of security experience, a strong smart contract background, and the ability to review complex codebases while reasoning about failure modes and attack vectors across DeFi protocols.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of security experience in crypto or DeFi contexts.
• Strong smart contract security background and threat modeling.
• Ability to review complex codebases and reason about protocol-level failures.
• Clear written communication of risk, impact, and trade-offs.

Responsibilities

• Review major protocol changes before audits or deployment.
• Perform attacker-driven analysis of smart contracts and protocol mechanisms.
• Influence security decisions in design and architecture discussions early on.
• Identify risks in Aave-adjacent systems and integrations.
• Contribute to AI-assisted security tooling and evaluate its effectiveness.
• Translate findings into reusable knowledge, invariants, and testing ideas.
• Collaborate with incident response teams on detection and response needs.
• Coordinate with external auditors to define scope and areas of concern.

Job description

Aave Labs is seeking a Protocol Security Researcher to bolster its internal protocol security function. This role sits at the intersection of smart contract security, protocol design, adversarial research, and AI-assisted review, focusing on reducing protocol risk continuously.

The ideal candidate has 5+ years of security experience, a strong smart contract background, and the ability to review complex codebases while reasoning about failure modes and attack vectors across DeFi protocols.