Founding Engineer – Smart Contract Data at Shadow

At Shadow, we’re building the end-to-end data platform for crypto.

Blockchain networks are the next evolution of the Internet, yet it’s much too difficult to work with onchain data today. We’re taking a crypto-native approach to reimagine blockchain data infrastructure from the ground up, starting with a product that allows anyone to extract custom data from any smart contract.

We've raised $9M in seed funding led by Paradigm, with additional angels from Coinbase Ventures, Electric Capital, Ethereum Foundation, Uniswap, and Flashbots.

We're a small team who primarily works out of a beautiful office space in NYC.

We’re hiring a founding smart contract data engineer to join our world-class team.

About the role

In this role you’ll be working closely with the CEO, CTO, and the technical staff of our enterprise customers to do protocol research, design data models, and write shadow events in smart contracts. You should get excited about working with the protocol and research teams of top crypto companies to evaluate what the most valuable pieces of data to extract out of smart contracts are, and implement them as shadow events.

What you'll do (responsibilities)

We're looking for an experienced IC who wants to:

Define the new standard for onchain data. We’re taking a deeply crypto-native approach to onchain data, and strongly believe that the way we’re doing things will become the new standard for the rest of the ecosystem. You’ll get to be a primary author on how it plays out.

Go deep on cutting-edge protocols. We’re already working with the top protocol and research teams in crypto. You’ll get to partner closely with folks you know from Twitter.

Create novel and valuable datasets. Shadow events can unlock completely new datasets that protocol teams, hedge funds, and MEV searchers would kill to have. You’ll lead the charge to identify and implement the most valuable ones across protocols and chains.

Our tech stack

• Backend infrastructure built in Rust

• Kubernetes on GCP

• Kafka, BigTable, Postgres, Snowflake/BigQuery

• Typescript and Next.js

• Solidity and Vyper

What we're looking for (qualifications)

You're an ambitious senior or staff-level IC that has designed and written smart contracts or built subgraphs, have gone deep into the peculiarities of onchain data, and understand how the mechanisms of various protocols within the same category differ from each other (e.g. UniswapV3 vs Cowswap or Aave vs Compound vs Maker).

Obsession with onchain data. You’re fascinated by the details of protocol mechanism design, have examined the source code of dozens of dapps, and understand how the design decisions they’ve made within their contracts affect how onchain data is generated.

Data hygiene and best practices. You’ve learned the importance of good data quality from experience, and have the battle scars to prove it. You’ll be scaling your knowledge for all of our customers and for the crypto data ecosystem as a whole.

Curious and quick learning. We don't expect you to have experience in every technology we use, but to learn and be productive quickly. We value people who can quickly obtain a deep technical understanding of new domains.

Pragmatic attention to detail. You hold your work to a high standard. You strive for few slips in code, clean Git hygiene, and clear written communication — all while remaining low-ego and solution oriented.

Good heart. We are a group of friendly ambitious nerds who are effortlessly kind to one another, and we don't tolerate jerks.

Why join

Team — we have a high bar; you'll be on a small team of extremely talented individuals.

Impact — work on stuff that actually matters and will grow crypto as a whole.

Ownership — you will have an extreme level of autonomy over your work.

Who you'll be working with

Emily (Co-Founder and CTO) — Previously Paradigm EIR, and Staff Engineer → Engineering Manager at Airbnb, where she built the realtime indexer for user profiling used sitewide and managed a team of 15 engineers. Has been highly active onchain since DeFi summer 2020.

Alvin (Co-Founder and CEO) — Previously Paradigm EIR, and Designer → Staff Product Manager at Airbnb, where he was the first PM on Airbnb Plus and helped take it from a whiteboard idea to a $100M/yr business in 2.5 years. Has been highly active onchain since DeFi Summer 2020.

Emily and Alvin are siblings and have worked together for the past 8 years!

What we offer (compensation & benefits)

Highly competitive salary and equity — we target 90th percentile compensation for both salary and equity. You’ll be expected to act like an owner, because you are one.

Great healthcare — gold-tier company healthcare plans. We cover 99% of medical, dental, vision premiums for employees, and 50% for dependents.

401k — flexible 401k retirement plan with contribution matching.

Hardware setup — we’ll buy whatever you need to be productive.