Protocol Engineer

We’re looking for an exceptional Protocol Engineer to help us push the frontier of blockchain interoperability. You’ll focus on the on‑chain layer of the Metalayer—Caldera’s high‑performance, stack‑agnostic bridge that already serves 75+ rollups and their users. Your day‑to‑day will involve architecting and hardening smart contracts that move real value across chains, designing security‑critical role and upgrade patterns, and collaborating with audit partners to ship code that can safely secure hundreds of millions of dollars.

This is the perfect role for an engineer who has shipped high‑TVL protocols and thrives on digging deep into EVM/SVM internals, gas economics, and cross‑chain message‑passing. If you want to see your work deployed to dozens of chains and used by thousands of developers, we’d love to meet you.

We’re backed by leading crypto investors (Founders Fund, Dragonfly, and Sequoia), offer competitive cash + token, and provide full benefits.

About Caldera

Caldera builds infrastructure that lets the most ambitious Web3 apps launch ultra‑performant rollups instead of competing for block space on congested general‑purpose chains. Our software powers dynamic, scalable blockchain experiences for millions of users. We’re a distributed team with hubs in San Francisco and New York, and we support both in‑office and remote work.

As a Protocol Engineer at Caldera, you will

• Design & implement Solidity and Rust smart contracts across EVM, L2s, and SVM that form the core Metalayer protocol.

• Own on‑chain security—role‑based access control, pause/upgrade paths, and high‑value asset protections.

• Drive audits: spec, coordinate, and remediate findings with top security firms.

• Collaborate with relayer, indexer, and frontend teams to define clear, developer‑friendly on‑chain APIs.

• Build tooling for on‑chain monitoring, alerting, and gas/performance profiling.

• Research & prototype new protocol features (e.g., fast‑finality bridges, ZK‑verified proofs) that expand Metalayer’s surface area.

You might be a fit for this role if you…

• Have 3+ years engineering experience, including shipping production protocols with significant TVL.

• Possess expert‑level Solidity and/or Rust skills and a deep grasp of EVM/SVM internals.

• Understand gas/compute metering on Ethereum, L2s, and Solana, and how off‑chain components (relayers, indexers) interact with contracts.

• Are comfortable owning end‑to‑end security: access control, upgradeability, failure‑mode analysis, and incident response.

• Excel at systematic debugging, test‑driven development, and writing clean, well‑reviewed code.

• Communicate clearly and enjoy partnering with frontend, backend, and product teams.

Bonus points

• Prior experience building AMMs, bridges, or MEV/intents systems.

• Hands‑on work with consensus algorithms (Paxos/Raft, Tendermint, HotStuff, etc.).

• Familiarity with ZK proofs, fast‑finality research, or cross‑chain messaging standards (e.g., CCIP, IBC).

• Significant open‑source contributions to blockchain clients, protocol libraries, or security tools.