Protocol Researcher

What are we all about?

We are a team of builders and researchers on a mission to empower enterprises and developers worldwide to access and build on decentralized systems.

Our expertise covers several domains: Ethereum and Starknet protocol engineering, layer-2, AI, cryptography research, protocol research, decentralized finance (DeFi), security auditing, formal verification, real-time monitoring, smart contract development, and dapps and enterprise engineering.

Working to solve some of the most challenging problems in the blockchain space, we frequently collaborate with renowned companies, such as Ethereum Foundation, Starknet Foundation, Gnosis Chain, Flashbots, Forta Protocol, Lido, EigenLayer, Open Zeppelin, RISCZero, Aleph Zero, and many more.

Today, we are a 350+ strong team working remotely across 66+ countries.

View all our open positions here: https://www.nethermind.io/open-roles

Are you the one?

An ideal candidate is a researcher who actively participates in debates about L1 and L2 designs, systemic risks, and consensus algorithms by writing academic papers, blog-posts, or fora entries.

Candidates should be able to work in a distributed research team, express their research ideas clearly, and know how to argue their findings formally. We appreciate candidates who are not afraid of voicing their opinions and motivate them or ask for explanations of concepts they are not familiar with.

Responsibilities:

As a protocol researcher, you will participate in research on, for example:

• L2 designs
  • Prover coordination and sequencer design, decentralization, incentivization.
  • Levels of finality.
  • L2 governance, PoS vs PoG.
  • Auctioning the right to build a block.
• Various flavors of staking: vanilla staking, restaking, liquid staking, and systemic risks they come with.
• Consensus algorithms
  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of the known consensus protocols? When a given protocol work well, and when does it not?
  • How do we incentivize participants in the consensus algorithms?
  • How finality in consensus algorithms is achieved?

Must haves:

• A strong understanding of distributed protocol design. Particularly, a demonstrable ability to identify the trade-offs faced by protocols when deployed on blockchains.
• Ability to identify mechanism design problems and propose solutions.
• Familiarity with Ethereum: how it works and why?
• Familiarity with various designs of L2s.
• Ability to express thoughts precisely.

Nice to haves:

• Knowledge about cryptography, or
• Knowledge about game theory.
• Published work in relevant fields, blog posts and forum posts also count.
  
  

This is a fully remote role, with flexibility to work on a diverse range of projects, and opportunities to attend leading global conferences in the field. Some of Nethermind Research’s past work includes:

- Fiat-Shamir Security of FRI and Related SNARKs: https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1071
- Systematization of Knowledge for Decentralized Identities and Verifiable Credentials: https://research.lido.fi/t/a-proposal-for-partnering-with-nethermind-to-design-a-mechanism-for-a-good-validator-set-maintenance/3000…
- Attributable Consensus Solution for DV clusters: https://community.obol.tech/t/proposal-attributable-consensus-solution-for-dv-clusters/104…
- Threshold Signature Schemes: https://medium.com/nethermind-eth/threshold-signature-schemes-36f40bc42aca…
- A DEX design with user privacy: https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1868

Perks and benefits:

• Fully remote
• Flexible working hours
• Plus equity