Co-Founder

Genis; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 800 000 - 1 200 000; Full time

Job summary

A pioneering blockchain startup in Cape Town seeks a Co-Founder with deep expertise in Web3 and blockchain to join its mission of authenticating digital files using blockchain technology. You will be responsible for the technical architecture, smart contract optimization, and scaling operations. This partnership offers significant equity, real technical ownership, and the chance to solve major industry challenges. No initial salary, but a competitive package post-funding.

Qualifications

• Experience shipping smart contracts to mainnet with a deep understanding of gas optimization and security patterns.
• Proficiency in writing secure, efficient Solidity contracts.
• Experience building React apps with ethers.js / web3.js.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical architecture and drive all blockchain and Web3 decisions.
• Build and optimize smart contracts for gas efficiency and security.
• Scale the Web3 infrastructure and handle high-volume blockchain interactions.
• Lead frontend Web3 integration, focusing on seamless user experience.

Skills

Deep Web3 / blockchain experience

Strong Solidity skills

Frontend Web3 expertise

Full-stack capabilities

Job description

GENIS | Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa Co-Founder Genis is building the verification layer for the internet.

We let anyone prove a digital file is authentic, unaltered, and theirs using blockchain technology — for pennies instead of the traditional notary fees.

With AI-generated content exploding, proving what's real is becoming critical.

We're solving that.

What You'll Do

Own the technical architecture —drive all blockchain and Web3 decisions alongside the founder.

Build and optimize smart contracts —design gas-efficient Solidity contracts, implement new features like batch uploads and access control, audit security.

Scale the Web3 infrastructure —optimize RPC usage, implement caching layers, handle high-volume blockchain interactions.

Lead frontend Web3 integration —build seamless wallet connections, transaction flows, and Web3 UX that feels like Web2.

Make key technical decisions —choose when to go multi-chain, which storage solutions to integrate, how to architect for scale.

Eventually build and lead the engineering team —hire engineers, set technical culture, own the roadmap.

What I'm Looking For

Deep Web3 / blockchain experience —have shipped smart contracts to mainnet and understand gas optimization, security patterns, and blockchain architecture.

Strong Solidity skills —write secure, efficient contracts and know OpenZeppelin libraries inside out.

Frontend Web3 expertise —built React apps with ethers.js / web3.js, handled wallet connections, created smooth Web3 UX.

Full-stack capabilities —comfortable with Node.js backends, APIs, databases, and infrastructure.

Shipped products —taken something from zero to users, not just worked on internal tools or enterprise projects.

Bonus Points

Experience with Polygon, L2s, or EVM-compatible chains IPFS / decentralized storage knowledge Smart contract security auditing experience Built developer tools or APIs for Web3 Contributed to open-source blockchain projects Understanding of cryptographic primitives (hashing, signatures, encryption) Previous startup experience, especially early‑stage startups

What Makes This Different

Real Problem : This isn't crypto for crypto's sake.

Deepfakes, document fraud, and content authenticity are billion‑dollar problems affecting real industries.

We use blockchain to solve actual pain points.

Already Working : We're not at the idea stage.

There's a live MVP with smart contracts deployed, backend running, and frontend functional.

You're joining to scale something that already works.

Massive Market :

Every content creator, legal firm, university, hospital, and supply chain needs file verification. The infrastructure could touch billions of files.

Timing is Perfect :

AI content generation just hit mainstream. The authenticity crisis is happening now.

We're early to a problem about to explode.

About the Current Founder I'm technical but not a blockchain expert—I taught myself Web3 to build this. I need a co‑founder who is deep in this space and can make us world‑class on the blockchain side while I focus on product, growth, and raising capital.

I'm looking for a true partner, not an employee—someone willing to bet years of their life on it.

What I'm Offering

Significant co‑founder equity —partnership, not a job. Equity split negotiable based on experience and contribution. Real technical ownership —define the roadmap, not execute someone else's. Solve meaningful problems —build trust infrastructure for the internet, not another DeFi yield optimizer. Ground‑floor opportunity —join at the very beginning when your impact is maximized. No salary initially (pre‑funding), but once we raise, competitive salary plus equity.

Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at GENIS by 2×.

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