About Protocol Labs

Protocol Labs drives breakthroughs in computing to push humanity forward. Protocol Labs is a product-development lab, but behind the protocols and tools we build, behind the research and implementations, are passionate people, teammates, and community members. Most teams in the Protocol Labs Network are fully distributed and work remotely around the world. Engineers, researchers, and operators work in the open to improve the internet — humanity's most important technology — as we explore new advances at the intersection of many exciting fields (crypto, networks, distributed systems) and cultures (startups, research, open source, distributed work).

Enthusiasm about the decentralized web and blockchains has brought an influx of people who want to use distributed systems but who don't know how to build the necessary infrastructure. We are building that infrastructure. To continue that work, we're looking for people who thoroughly understand the principles of distributed systems and cryptography, and who will lean into the challenges of applying those principles in open-source code that will be deployed worldwide.

Filecoin

Filecoin, a decentralized storage network to store humanity's most valuable information, is one of the most promising projects of Web3. In the two years since its launch, over 18 exabytes of storage have been pledged to the Filecoin network, which is proven and verified by node operators every single day. As we look forward, many challenges remain to be solved such as continuing to scale the network, allowing user programmability through the addition of a Virtual Machine, and implementing cutting-edge ideas coming from the latest in cryptographic research.

Filecoin Saturn

One such challenge is the reliable, performant, and economic retrieval of content on the Internet, including Filecoin. Filecoin Saturn is a decentralized content delivery network (CDN) for Filecoin. We seek a Senior Software Engineer to join the fast-growing Filecoin Saturn team.

As a Senior Software Engineer for Filecoin Saturn, you will...

• Play a lead role in the development and deployment of Saturn’s next generation CDN to realize the full potential of IPFS’s edge caching performance properties
• Function as an engineering leader, working with the existing team to deliver outstanding technical results
• Be responsible for Saturn’s technical performance, improving key metrics such as time to first byte, average MS latency and uptime
• Create or maintain software libraries and programs depended on by other systems and applications
• Contribute to protocol design and specification efforts
• Participate in the design and implementation of performant and resilient distributed applications
• Solve hard problems in low-trust distributed systems
• Uplevel and guide engineers on your team
• Interface with other technical teams both inside and outside of Protocol Labs

You may be a fit for this role if you have....

• Worked on massively distributed internet scale services. While CDN experience is highly relevant, we particularly value experience working on state of the art distributed systems at scale.
• A strong technical design acumen informed by broad experience across multiple domains/specialties
• A solid understanding of distributed systems principles and applications
• Mastery in large-scale modern software development practices (we primarily use Go, Node.js, and Rust, but do not require any particular language experience)
• Literacy with cryptographic principles and practices
• Proven track record of independently driving projects in a fast-paced environment
• Excellent communication skills on both technical and non-technical issues
• A keen awareness of teamwork, process, and patterns of successful collaboration and teamwork
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially in an asynchronous work environment

Bonus Points

• Security engineering and/or cryptography principles and practices
• Experience building with decentralized building blocks such as DHTs, consensus protocols, smart contracts, blockchain, p2p networking, etc.
• Experience building a CDN
• Experience with open source
• Experience designing and building peer-to-peer software systems

What’s it like to work at Protocol Labs?

Engineering at Protocol Labs

With IPFS, libp2p, Filecoin and other related projects we are laying the foundation for a more resilient, more secure, distributed version of the web. This requires rigorous engineering from protocol design through all the phases of implementation. We strike a balance between pragmatism (put it on a ship ⛴), deeply informed protocol design, and strict application of strong engineering principles. All of this happens in an environment defined by curiosity, passion, and a love for open source.

If you’re passionate about the future of computing and a more democratized internet, we want to talk to you!