We believe Ethereum has the potential to solve some of humanity’s most crucial coordination issues. Since our initial inception as a research group, we have sought to scale both its technology and values.
At present, the most pressing bottleneck to the growth of Ethereum is its performance and scalability. We are building the most elegant solution to this problem. We do this in the open (under an MIT open source license) because we believe in open source innovation and its ability to accelerate growth.
OP Labs is building Optimism mainnet, and by extension, the infrastructure that powers all OP-Stack chains. We are improving Ethereum’s performance by orders of magnitude and donating the profits from doing so to funding Ethereum public goods. By operating as a Public Benefit Corporation, OP Labs can align its incentives with the public good and take positive-sum steps toward a sustainable future for the internet.
The Optimism Collective leads the blockchain protocol landscape, dedicated to fostering a scalable and sustainable ecosystem. Optimism’s ethos, in sync with Ethereum's vision, tackles pivotal coordination challenges of the digital age. Optimism’s goal is to harmonize private incentives with public good, shaping a resilient future for the Internet. Optimism’s scope spans diverse areas like Gaming, DeFi, NFTs, and Enterprise.
The Proofs team is looking for an experienced software engineer with Rust expertise. We’re developing the infrastructure to enable the secure and permissionless withdrawal of funds from OP Stack chains and the Superchain.
We’re contributing to the Rust Ethereum ecosystem, enabling OP Stack chains to use Reth, and building a rust-based fault proof VM and fault proof program which complement the existing Go-based implementation. We also maintain important Go-based infrastructure, and while we do have Go specialists our values are to put the Optimism mission first and help anywhere that’s needed.
What are the role responsibilities?
- Contribute to important Rust-based Ethereum and OP Stack infrastructure including OP Reth, Kona, and related open-source tools and libraries.
- Evolve our proof system to meet stage 2 requirements using dispute games and/or validity proofs.
- Assist in occasional maintenance of existing Go-based infrastructure as needed.
- Work with other teams and other disciplines within OP Labs, and with our ecosystem of external developers and partners.
What skills do you bring?
- A deep understanding of the Rust language and ecosystem.
- Blockchain development experience.
- Experience in systems programming, particularly in developing low-level software such as virtual machines, interpreters, or compilers.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to document technical details clearly and collaborate effectively with team members.
- Strong understanding of cryptographic principles.
- Experience with Zero Knowledge Proofs is a nice-to-have.
- We take care of our employees. Competitive compensation, fully paid medical, dental, and vision, and a 4% 401K match—learn more about our benefits, culture, and all recruiting FAQ here.
- We take pride in the accomplishments of our teammates and support each other in doing the best work of our careers.
- Our team is a diverse group of people from varied backgrounds. We cherish our eclecticism and consider it a great strength.
- We’re fully remote, deeply engaged, highly skilled, and like to have fun.
- We think long-term. Our founders have been scaling Ethereum since 2015.
We strongly encourage candidates of all different backgrounds to apply. We believe that our work is stronger with a variety of perspectives, and we’re eager to further diversify our company. If you have a background that you feel would make an impact at Optimism, please consider applying. We’re committed to building an inclusive, supportive place for you to do the best work of your career.
Top Skills
What We Do
Everybody and their mother working on blockchains loves the word “decentralization”. On a broad, world-changing scale, we can all agree that it’s important. Yet, when we zoom into the specifics of how to build this decentralized world, we find many diverse approaches. Whether it’s defi, identity, art, healthcare, or anything in between, a single dependency unites each dream for the future: scalability.
We at OP Labs are building the critical infrastructure to address this need -- a protocol called Optimism -- an extension to Ethereum that scales both its technology and philosophy and enables orders of magnitude more performance. Ethereum will enable the greatest change in human coordination since the birth of the internet, and through the Optimism protocol, OP Labs is here to help bring it to the masses.
Join a team that is passionate about solving complex problems by exploring (and/or expanding) the boundaries of technology! We are a remote first company with local hubs where teams can co-work IRL, when safely able to do so. We aim to grow quickly, so come help us build! :-)
