Staff Software Engineer, Solana Staking Protocol

CryptoproNetwork; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 218,000 - 257,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity eligibility

Bonus eligibility

Medical benefits

Job summary

Coinbase is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for the Staking Platform to own the multi-year Solana staking strategy, spanning validator performance, protocol participation, and product integration.

You will lead efforts to optimize APY through validator tuning, participate in protocol governance, and shape tooling and infrastructure for reliable validator operations while mentoring engineers across levels IC4–IC5.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering with hands-on Solana protocol experience.
• Proficiency in Rust and/or Go for large-scale distributed infra.
• Established presence in the Solana ecosystem with governance participation.

Responsibilities

• Own Solana staking strategy across validator performance, protocol participation, and product integration.
• Lead engineering to achieve high APY through validator optimization and stake distribution tooling.
• Evaluate protocol upgrades and position Coinbase for changes before launch.
• Architect scalable staking integrations with product teams across Coinbase surface.
• Represent Coinbase in the Solana ecosystem and engage with foundations and validators.
• Build production infrastructure for validator operations and mentor engineers.

Skills

Solana protocol experience

Rust/Go development

Distributed systems

Public speaking/governance

Tools

Validator client ecosystem

Observability tooling

Job description

As a Staff Software Engineer on the Staking Platform team within the

What you'll do:

• Own Coinbase's multi-year technical strategy for Solana staking across validator performance, protocol participation, and product integration, connecting engineering decisions to yield optimization, cost efficiency, and customer growth.
• Lead the engineering effort to achieve industry-leading APY through validator optimization, including vote accuracy, block production, MEV strategies, commission tuning, and stake distribution tooling.
• Serve as Coinbase's foremost authority on the Solana runtime, consensus mechanism, staking economics, and validator client landscape (Agave, Firedancer), evaluating protocol upgrades (e.g., SIMD proposals) and proactively positioning Coinbase for changes before they land.
• Partner with Retail and Institutional Staking product and engineering teams to architect scalable staking integrations across Coinbase's product surface, while advising on non-staking Solana initiatives requiring deep protocol knowledge.
• Represent Coinbase in the Solana ecosystem by maintaining relationships with the Solana Foundation, core development teams, and major validators, contributing to protocol governance, and speaking at conferences.
• Build production infrastructure for validator operations, monitoring, automation, and reliability while mentoring IC4-IC5 engineers on Solana-specific domain expertise.

Required Skills and Experience:

• 10+ years of software engineering with extensive hands-on Solana protocol experience, including deep familiarity with the runtime, validator mechanics, staking economics, consensus (Tower BFT), and the validator client ecosystem at the source-code level.
• Production-level proficiency in Rust and/or Go, with deep experience building and operating complex distributed infrastructure at scale (bare metal, cloud, networking, observability).
• Established presence in the Solana ecosystem with existing relationships across the Solana Foundation, core contributor teams, or major validators, and a track record of public speaking or protocol governance participation.
• Demonstrated ability to define multi-quarter technical strategies, break ambiguous large-scope problems into executable plans, and drive cross-functional alignment with product, business, and executive stakeholders.
• Familiarity with Solana's evolving staking landscape (liquid staking, stake pools, restaking protocols) or comparative PoS protocol experience (Ethereum, Cosmos).
• Utilizes generative AI responsibly, maintaining human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, cost, and quality.

Pay Transparency Notice: Base salary varies by location (see range below). Total compensation may also include equity and bonus eligibility, and benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401(k)).

Annual base salary range (excluding equity and bonus): $218,025 - $256,500 USD