Senior Software Engineer, Backend

Polymer Labs; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Join an innovative organization on the cutting edge of Web3 technology as a Senior Software Engineer. In this pivotal role, you'll tackle deep technical challenges that will shape the future of multi-chain communication. With a commitment to open-source software, you'll collaborate with a talented team to build robust infrastructure and solutions that have a significant industry impact. Enjoy unlimited paid holidays, equity in the company, and a flat organizational structure that fosters communication and collaboration. If you're passionate about technology and eager to contribute to a disruptive environment, this opportunity is perfect for you.

Benefits

Unlimited Paid Holidays

Equity in Company

Flexible Working Hours

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience as a Senior Software Engineer focused on Backend.
• Experience in start-up environments or complex technical product companies.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for scaling and developing the vision for Web3.
• Solve complex distributed systems and consensus problems at scale.

Skills

Golang

RUST

Data Structures

Algorithms

Distributed Systems

Consensus Problems

Job description

Polymer Labs is building the networking layer of web3. Polymer chain is the most optimal universal IBC (Inter-blockchain communication) router.

Ecosystems such as Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos (among others) have experienced massive growth in users and LTVs over the last year, and it has become clear that there is a need for a unified OSS standard for multi-chain communication.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Then stay and keep reading

What are we talking about? Tell me something about Polymer

At Polymer, they are on a mission to create the connective tissue of Web3 with their product.

They have spent more than 2 years developing a Web3 framework to enable Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) . Polymer Labs is focused on bringing IBC to all blockchains, including those outside the Cosmos ecosystem. Many notable blockchains, like Ethereum and Solana, do not follow these requirements, so these non-compliant chains (aka non-IBC-enabled chains) currently cannot utilize IBC to send secure messages across chains.

They are a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) with a clear vision of creating an interconnected and trust-minimized future. They believe that the best way to achieve this is through Zero Knowledge proofs (ZK - IBC) . After continuous research and development, their team has discovered that the properties of these protocols are best suited when it comes to improving scalability and trust-minimization.

With their unique technology, they provide the ability to simplify off-line computations and provide simple chain verification to validate computations and hypotheses. ZK-IBC also allows different blockchain protocols to communicate with each other, without relying on third parties.

We could go on four hours, and it would not give you the full context of what Polymer is doing. Honestly, I think it's best if you meet the team and discover yourself how are they shaping the Web3 future.

Hum... How do I know this is serious?

At Polymer, they are assembling a top-notch team of passionate technologists to shape a chain-agnostic future.

With over $26M in funding and the support of 60+ VCs, angels and partners, they're a fast-growing Series A Startup.

Where do I fit into this puzzle?

As a Sr. Software Engineer, you will play a key role in the evolution of this project. You will work on deep technical problems that will have industry-wide impact. You will collaborate, with teammates and ecosystem contributors, on highly complex Open Source Software with incredible future potential.

Their technical level is absolutely amazing. They are looking for new teammates who share their philosophy of revolutionizing the current digital statu quo with new ways of understanding engineering and software development.

Here are some key takeaways:

• You will be responsible, along with the rest of the technical team, for scaling and further developing their revolutionary vision for Web3.
• Your previous experience implementing solutions in digital product companies will be highly valued.
• You will contribute to build a robust technology and infrastructure to meet the future challenges ahead.

You will have assimilated (or attempted to ) all training hours included in your onboarding process. The onboarding process is specifically designed to get you down to work, and tackle any task that comes your way.

You'll be getting to know all your teammates. You will also find the answer of all these questions: What does each one do? Where can I find useful documentation? What is the development process like?...

At the end of this period, you will be making your first contributions, and you will get to know the project architecture.

You will work on solving complex distributed systems and consensus problems at scale.

Work on the core blockchain messaging layer, distributed key management and multi-chain observer infrastructure.

You will work on large scale simulation testing.

You will support and contribute ideas that enrich the Polymer ecosystem and the other teams.

Polymer's work culture is based on the following 3 pillars:

• You will be part of a flat organization where communication flows without barriers.
• You will share the same strong commitment with the long-term vision of the project as your teammates.
• There is common interest in contributing to the community in a disruptive environment of high technological complexity.

Most of the team comes from Web2 environments, Open Source organizations, and decentralized system development, although not everyone does.

They are a team of 10–15 people organized in squads. They know that they are on the verge of a vertical growth stage.

Their OSS work environment allows them to maintain the highest quality standards. Their drive to get things right has allowed them to grow the team and get more funds.

This is an organization that was born in the United States, but witha clear global character traits.

Its teams are distributed in different parts of the world, which makes asynchronous work a priority. Each person is free to work the hours that best fit-in with their personal life, but they have a window of time in which everyone agrees to work, which translated into our time zone would be from 17:00h to 19:00h (CET).

Jornada laboral

Flexible

Remoto

100%

The whole Polymer Labs team has a 100% remote working policy, being distributed among different locations worldwide.

As long as you have a good connection (that is mandatory XD), you can work from home, a co-working or wherever the wind takes you :p.

• Bo Du (Co-Founder): Bo was the very first employee at Unicorn Chronosphere and worked as an infrastructure engineer at Uber and Capsule8 . His specialties are databases, distributed systems and software infrastructure. He has extensive experience in M3DB (OSS time series database) development.
• Peter Kim (Co-Founder): Peter worked for Ernst & Young's Strategy and Innovation divisions. His focus has been on GtM strategy, new product launch and scale, organizational restructuring and synergy capture with experience in connecting partnerships and joint ventures at DeFi.
• Wengwei Xiong (Founding Engineer): Wengwei´s expertise spans from developping database platforms in Paradigm 4 to leading pharmaceutical companies that identified biomarkers for diseases, including COVID-19. At Avitide, Wenwei led a team building biological databases. His academic research and software tools have been cited more than 800 times and helped win more than $3.7 million in NSF funding.
• Nicolas Pernas (Technical Staff): Nico worked as a Staff Engineer at Twilio, where he helped build their WebRTC-based real-time video product. He also spent time at AWS, where he focused on developing the virtualization stack that is the foundation of EC2. His beginnings were as a low-level software engineer: developing Linux kernels, bootloaders, high-performance networking and IoT.

They are a team that enjoys their work and has passion for what they do, listening to them is wonderful! But bringing things more down to earth, what they need from their future workmate is the following:

• That you have a minimum of 10 years experience as a Senior Software Engineer focused on Backend. Preferably in Golang and/or RUST and data structures/algorithms (Stacks that you will find in Polymer).
• You have experience working in Start-up environments, Open Source or highly complex technical product companies relevant to the industry.
• Previous experience on developing large scale projects(preferably 0 to 1), data ingestion systems or experience with building sophisticated application services.
• Very fluid or advance English level (English CV required ).

In addition to the above, you will get extra brownie points if you also have one or any of the following:

• Strong mathematical background.
• Eagerness to learn or further delve into cryptographic and Web3 protocols, as well as distributed systems, Blockchain, Ethereum....
• Passion for growing and up-leveling your peers, experience, mentoring and vision on how to help young engineers grow.
• Ability to manage time and focus on the critical path of a project.

No stack

UNLIMITED PAID HOLIDAYS. You will be entitled to 22 days' holiday per year. In addition, you will be able to take extra days if you want and need them.

In addition to your salary, you will receive a share of the company's equity. Equity component will represent up to 30% of your salary.

Ticket Restaurante

Sure!! This is one of their many benefits.

• There'll be an initial tech meeting, which is like a coding interview.
• Then final round will consist of 3 interviews:
• 1 coding interview (pair programming session with the technical team).
• 1 final cultural and behavioural interview.

NO. The team is spread over locations from the US, Spain and beyond.

They have organized a mandatory communal working time slot from 5 to 7 PM (CET).