We're hiring a Staff Backend Engineer to work with a small and highly technical team building the infrastructure behind new DeFi protocols and vault products at Aave Labs.
The role focuses on the systems between onchain protocols and the applications built around them. This includes **vault management and curation systems, constraint-based allocation solvers, secure protocol infrastructure, high-throughput blockchain indexing, and performant, well-documented APIs.**
You'll work on systems where correctness, reliability, performance, and security directly affect user funds and protocol integrity. The role has significant ownership and autonomy across offchain infrastructure and components that interact closely with smart contracts and onchain state.
You will also work closely with Quant Engineers. Quant owns the financial models, assumptions, validation, and calibration. Backend owns the production systems, data pipelines, and services that run those models. Smart contract engineers own their onchain integration and enforcement.
How you can make an impact:
- Design, build, and operate backend infrastructure for new DeFi protocols and vault products
- Build vault management, curation, and constraint-based allocation systems
- Build high-throughput blockchain indexers and data-ingestion pipelines
- Design performant, stable, and well-documented APIs for applications and internal systems
- Work with Quant Engineers to turn reviewed models into reliable production services
- Work closely with smart contract engineers on systems that consume onchain state and submit onchain transactions
- Take technical ownership of projects and help maintain a high engineering standard across the team
Let's connect if you have:
- -5-8+ years of backend engineering experience, including ownership of production systems
- Strong experience with Rust. Experience with C++, Go, Zig, or another systems language can substitute
- Experience building high-performance, data-intensive, or event-driven backend systems
- Strong PostgreSQL knowledge
- Experience with blockchain, DeFi, financial infrastructure, or another environment involving real capital
- The ability to work independently in a high-autonomy environment
- Strong judgment around correctness, reliability, and security
Nice to haves:
- Experience with cross-chain blockchain indexing or large-scale data ingestion
- Experience designing constraint, optimization, solver, or allocation systems
- Experience reading smart contracts and integrating with EVM-based protocols
- Experience operating financial systems where correctness and reliability affect capital
- Hands-on experience with Kafka and ClickHouse or similar analytical databases
Skills Required
- 5–8+ years of backend engineering experience, including ownership of production systems
- Strong experience with Rust, or comparable experience with C++, Go, Zig, or another systems language
- Experience building high-performance, data-intensive, or event-driven backend systems
- Strong PostgreSQL knowledge
- Experience with blockchain, DeFi, financial infrastructure, or another environment involving real capital
- Ability to work independently in a high-autonomy environment
- Strong judgment around correctness, reliability, and security
- Experience with cross-chain blockchain indexing or large-scale data ingestion
- Experience designing constraint, optimization, solver, or allocation systems
- Experience reading smart contracts and integrating with EVM-based protocols
- Experience operating financial systems where correctness and reliability affect capital
- Hands-on experience with Kafka and ClickHouse or similar analytical databases
What We Do
Aave Labs is the original author and key contributor of the Aave Protocol and a software technology company founded by Stani Kulechov. The team builds blockchain-based products that power decentralized finance, including the Aave Protocol, the Aave-native stablecoin GHO, and Horizon, an institutional platform for borrowing against tokenized real-world assets. Aave is DeFi’s largest and most trusted lending protocol, where users can earn, borrow, save, and swap alongside millions of others worldwide.
