Staff Software Engineer, Blockchain Protocol Full Time (Remote)

Pagoda is shepherding a future where NEAR becomes the blockchain operating system. We believe that re-inventing how software is made and distributed is our greatest opportunity to open economic access to those who are not fully integrated into the global economy. Our products empower people to find opportunity, invent new experiences, and collaborate. Let’s build an Open Web world. A world where people control their assets, data, and power of governance.

We encourage people of all backgrounds to apply. Pagoda is committed to creating an inclusive culture, and we celebrate diversity of all kinds.

About The Role:

The Protocol Engineering team at Pagoda is responsible for the infrastructure of Layer 1 Blockchain, NEAR Protocol. We focus on building scalable, performant, and reliable infrastructure to actualize visions of NEAR Protocol, including the Blockchain Operating System (BOS).

We are growing our engineering team that develops the Blockchain protocol specification and its implementation. You will be working with complex concurrent systems, complicated state machines, and novel algorithms powering NEAR Protocol blockchain.

You will own various components and drive critical initiatives throughout their life cycles, including architecture, implementation, and maintenance. You will collaborate with highly knowledgeable and skilled colleagues who are passionate about solving hard problems that can disrupt the industry.

As a staff software engineer in the team, you will work in a highly ambiguous space, identify problems to tackle, research and come up with solutions, thoroughly plan milestones, and drive end to end execution while mentoring other engineers. As a tech lead, you will partner with the engineering manager, overlook ongoing projects, draw future roadmaps, coordinate cross team collaboration, and provide technical support to team members.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Collaboration with a fully distributed team around the world.
• Architecture and implementation of complex blockchain components in Rust.
• End-to-end ownership of critical blockchain components.
• Design/proposal of new blockchain protocol changes.
• Performance optimizations and scalability/reliability improvements of Blockchain.
• Open source community contribution by collaborating with external contributors on our codebase and participating in community events.
• Performance tuning and optimizations.
• Partnering with your engineering manager and driving the team’s technical roadmap.
• Facilitating cross-functional work within the organization.
• Facilitating technical discussions, consolidating  different perspectives to drive goals to execution.
• Auditing and resolving critical problems across blockchain infrastructure to provide the best user experience.
• Mentoring and supporting junior engineers

What We’re Looking For:

• Ability to
  • Navigate through ambiguity and clarifying unknowns
  • Quickly learn and grasp complex engineering concepts; we expect you to obtain a very good understanding of the blockchain protocol
  • Write clean yet efficient code.
  • Make trade off decisions for ruthless prioritization
  • Lay out priorities and methodically make progress towards the goal.
• Fluency with algorithms and data structures.
• Creativity to come up with proof of concept from high level design while not knowing all the details.
• Effective communication skills to convey your ideas and drive technical discussions with other engineers.
• Being comfortable with diving in multiple parts of a technology stack and quickly navigate through it
• Experience with concurrency or parallelism
• Experience debugging complex concurrent systems
• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related fields is a must

We’d Love If You Have:

• Familiarity with internals of other blockchains
• Professional experience with Rust alternatively but less preferred C++ or Go.
• Experience in building a blockchain smart contract or running a node in a blockchain network.
• Knowledge of cryptography
• Knowledge of compilers or virtual machines
• Knowledge of networks or operating systems

Here’s What Our Interview Process Looks Like:

Depending on calendar availability, from the first stage to the final stage, we do our best to keep the entire process to under three weeks. Our interviews take place via Zoom and typically consists of the following stages:

• Internal Recruiter Call (30 to 45 minutes)
• Meet with the Hiring Manager (30-45 minutes)
• Technical Interviews (4 x 60 minutes)
• Pagoda Values Interview (30 to 45 minutes)

Please let us know if you require any special requirements for your interview and we’ll do our best to accommodate.

Ideal Location For This Role

This is a fully remote role, so that your timezone matches or overlaps with our leadership for this role, you’ll ideally be located in American continents or Europe.

Compensation

The base salary range for this role is $182,750 – $215,000. This reflects the minimum and maximum range across all US locations. This does not include bonus, incentives, or benefits.

The actual base pay is dependent upon many factors, such as: leveling, relevant skills, and work location. If you are based outside of the US, we do have other geographic considerations that may impact your final compensation. Your recruiter can share more about the compensation and benefits applicable to your preferred location during the hiring process.

Benefits & Perks

• Flexible Annual Leave / PTO with an encouraged 20 day per year minimum
• Paid Holiday Week: the last week of the year
• Paid Wellness Week: the first week of July
• $2,000 Yearly Continued Education Reimbursement
• $2,000 Home Office Setup Reimbursement
• Co-working Space Reimbursement
• Company Retreats (2022 was in Lisbon!) & Team Offsites
• Mental Health Support and access to licensed therapists through Spill, 100% paid by Pagoda

Our Values At Pagoda

• Innovate and deliver—so our customers can build. We deliver new solutions for real, often urgent, customer needs. Practical over hype. We uphold our standards of excellence while balancing velocity and pragmatism.
• Focus precious time and energy on what matters. We are intentional about where we aim our resources. We channel our talents to focus on the critical missions in order to make an outsized impact.
• Favor ownership, agency and action. Everyone is an owner. As individuals, we are responsible and accountable for our work. We empower builders to make decisions and innovate without the burden of unnecessary roadblocks or complexity.
• Work as a team of empathetic humans. We practice mutual respect, open communication, humility and collaboration. We are kind and empathetic. We are welcoming towards diversity in all forms, including differences of perspective.
• Never break trust. Integrity is rare—and valuable—in this space. Reputation is hard to build and easy to break.