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Protocol Engineer

Engineering

Cayman, Toronto, Denver, New York

Full Time

Mid

US / Cayman $120K – $200K • Offers Equity • Offers Bonus

DeFi

About us:

Ether.fi is an innovative, rapidly growing crypto-native financial platform on a mission to put users in control of their wealth—making it easy to save, earn, and spend crypto. Positioned as a leading decentralized finance (DeFi) bank, ether.fi offers a fully integrated, non-custodial suite of products—Stake, Liquid, and Cash—that bridge crypto utility with real-world convenience.

With over $8B in assets under management and a lean, agile team of 25+, we’re building sustainable, secure, and scalable financial infrastructure to onboard the next billion users to crypto. Our offerings include liquid staking, automated yield strategies, and crypto-native payment solutions like credit cards, enabling a comprehensive decentralized banking experience.

As we continue to scale, we’re actively hiring talented, mission-driven individuals who want to shape the future of finance from the ground up.

Learn more at ether.fi.

Position Overview

We’re looking for engineers who want to build & ship, not just fork & integrate. People who get a kick out of solving protocol & blockchain design/implementation problems, hacking on side projects, and building things that actually ship. If you’re the kind of person who reads EIPs for fun, runs the staking validators at home, or has written your own zk circuits just to see how they work, keep reading.

This role is onsite 4 days per week at one of our global offices: Toronto, Denver, NYC, or the Cayman Islands.

What You’ll Work On:

  • You’ll be part of a tight team that ships real things in production — not just a fork of existing protocols, but end-to-end decentralized systems:
  • Building the future of finance, DeFi, and bringing it to the real world use cases
  • Designing and deploying Solidity smart contracts for staking, vaults, restaking strategies, and DeFi credit card systems.
  • Building backend systems (Golang/Python/Typescript) to automate on-chain operations, secure user flows, and integrate protocol logic.
  • Creating and iterating on real-world crypto utilities like non-custodial credit cards, yield vaults, and validator management tools.
  • Engaging in rigorous testing, code reviews, and documentation to uphold high standards of quality and maintainability.

If you're curious, check out our products like ether.fi Stake, Liquid, and Cash — all of them are real, live, and used by thousands of people.

You Might Be a Fit If You

  • Have strong fundamentals in software engineering & enjoys problem solvings and have shipped something real.
  • Care about clean & secure smart contract code, and think deeply about edge cases and failure modes.
  • Thrive in fast-moving environments where specs are open-ended and the best idea wins.
  • Have hacked on Blockchain/Smart Contract stuff for fun — maybe you’ve built your own smart contracts, audited protocols, or played around with multiple DeFi protocols, MEV bots, etc.
  • Want to work closely with a highly collaborative, low-ego team who commits for the mission.

Benefits

  • Competitive salary, performance-based incentives, and token allocation grant
  • Opportunity to work with a Top 4 Ethereum protocol, by TVL
  • Opportunities for professional development and growth within the organization
  • Health, dental, and vision insurance plans
  • Collaborative and inclusive work culture
  • Exposure to cutting-edge technologies in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space
  • Global team with opportunity for travel and working out of our 3 offices around the world
  • 4 weeks work from anywhere
  • Exciting company events and team-building off-sites

Company

ether.fi is a noncustodial, decentralized liquid staking protocol built on the Ethereum network. Users can deposit ETH or other liquid staking tokens and receive in return the protocol’s native token, eETH. This token is a rebasing ERC-20 that represents staked ETH shares and automatically accumulates rewards from both Ethereum staking and EigenLayer restaking. Since its launch in 2023, ether.fi has seen rapid growth, managing billions of dollars in assets.

A key feature of ether.fi is its commitment to security and decentralization. Unlike many staking platforms, ether.fi allows users to retain control over their validator keys. The protocol uses NFTs to represent individual validators, which can be tied to either users or node operators. This model supports transparency, minimizes custodial risk, and enables flexible, programmable participation in the Ethereum ecosystem. Rewards are distributed across three main streams: native ETH staking yield, bonuses from restaking on EigenLayer, and yield from using eETH or its wrapped form, weETH, in DeFi protocols.

Governance within ether.fi is driven by the ETHFI token. This governance token allows holders to participate in decisions such as parameter adjustments, node operator approvals, and treasury usage. ETHFI staking also unlocks loyalty rewards and has been used in airdrop campaigns to incentivize early adoption and community engagement. Through a combination of decentralized infrastructure, DeFi integration, and community governance, ether.fi aims to reshape Ethereum staking into a more open and accessible system.

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