⭐ Featured Opportunity

Protocol Research Specialist

Raiku logoRaiku

Apr 30

About the Role

As a Protocol Research Engineer at Raiku, you'll dive deep into Solana's consensus mechanisms, validator dynamics, and block-building edge cases to help push the boundaries of what’s possible on-chain. Your work will directly inform and evolve Raiku's infrastructure — including ahead-of-time auctions, deterministic inclusion, and decentralized execution environments.

This role is ideal for an engineer who obsesses over protocol-level behavior, from slashing conditions and fork choice rules to novel token incentive structures and inclusion guarantees. You will collaborate closely with our core engineering team, lead technical research deep-dives, and shape future SIMD proposals and Raiku-native designs.

Core Responsibilities

Protocol Research & Development

  • Analyze Solana protocol changes (SIMDs) and model their impact on consensus, block production, and validator incentives.
  • Explore alternative leader schedules, transaction scheduling policies, and failure recovery mechanisms.
  • Design and prototype changes to Raiku's validator sidecar, ackermann-node, and execution environment logic.

Incentives & Economics

  • Simulate and reason about token-level economics (e.g. fee markets, slot auctions, stake redistribution) in the context of Raiku’s architecture.
  • Collaborate with the team on reward structures that align validators, apps, and execution primitives.
  • Contribute to internal tooling for simulating validator behavior under new fee models or coordination layers.

Research & Thought Leadership

  • Write internal memos and public-facing research exploring protocol edge cases, inclusion determinism, and priority fee market design.
  • Lead technical discussions and workshops across the team and ecosystem partners.
  • Represent Raiku in upstream governance and protocol forums (e.g., GitHub SIMDs, community calls).

What We’re Looking For

  • Deep understanding of Solana's architecture, consensus algorithm (Tower BFT), and validator mechanics.
  • Proficiency in systems programming (Rust or C++) and experience working with validator or node clients (Agave, Jito, etc.).
  • Comfort reasoning about distributed systems, forks, slashing, transaction lifecycle, and fee markets.
  • Demonstrated ability to write clear, technical research — either internal design docs or public content.
  • A rigorous, systems-level thinker who thrives in ambiguity and wants to help shape the frontier of internet-scale consensus.

Bonus Points

  • Experience contributing to SIMD proposals or L1 protocol development (Solana, Cosmos, Ethereum, etc.).
  • Familiarity with execution environments (SVM, EVM, Move) or decentralized scheduling infrastructure.
  • Interest in MEV mitigation, slot auctions, or validator tokenomics.
  • Past experience in distributed systems research, zero-knowledge design, or compiler/runtime engineering.

Why Join Raiku?

Raiku is building a high-performance execution layer atop Solana that enables guaranteed transaction inclusion, pre-confirmations, and slot-level coordination — unlocking a new design space for ultra-reliable onchain apps. We’re backed by leading investors, deeply technical, and shipping fast.

  • Work with a world-class engineering team building core infrastructure from first principles.
  • Help define the next evolution of block production and validator coordination on Solana.
  • Remote-first, async culture optimized for focus, ownership, and velocity.
  • Competitive salary + meaningful token upside.
  • Home office and workstation setup stipend.

Listed in: Crypto Jobs, Remote Web3 Jobs, Web3 Web3 Jobs, Research Web3 Jobs, Developer Web3 Jobs, Engineering Web3 Jobs, Non Tech Web3 Jobs, Rust Crypto Jobs, Solana Crypto Jobs, Content Crypto Jobs, EVM Crypto Jobs, Community Web3 Jobs, Move Web3 Jobs, Cosmos Crypto Jobs, Ethereum Crypto Jobs, Full Time Web3 Jobs.

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