Job description
About the Ethereum Foundation (EF)
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) is a global non-profit dedicated to supporting Ethereum’s long-term success. Our mission is to allocate resources to critical projects, advocate for Ethereum within the ecosystem, and promote its vision to the world.
About the App Relations & Research Team
We help Ethereum applications succeed by proactively engaging teams, identifying needs early, and aligning resources where they matter most.
Our support spans technical challenges, new use cases, communication, distribution, and broader ecosystem coordination. We also produce actionable research to inform strategy and guide grantmaking. Our goal is to be high-context partners who move both the Ethereum Foundation and the wider ecosystem forward.
About this Role
This role is for someone who can bridge deep DeFi expertise with strategic ecosystem support. You’ll be responsible for staying ahead of emerging protocol designs, analyzing economic models and risks, and turning that insight into actionable guidance for the Ethereum Foundation and the broader ecosystem. You’ll act as the main point of contact for DeFi teams, contribute to internal strategic decisions, and lead research on high-impact trends.
What you’ll be doing
- Act as a primary point of contact for DeFi teams building in the Ethereum ecosystem
- Stay up to date on the latest protocol developments, for example Uniswap v4, Aave v4, Morpho v2, and other emerging designs
- Analyze mechanisms, economic models, and onchain risks across lending, trading, and stablecoins, including projects like Pendle (yield trading), Contango (leveraged forwards), Ethena (delta-neutral synthetic dollar), Fluid (LP-backed programmable debt), Euler (hook-enabled isolated lending), Redstone (custom oracles) Maple (institutional lending), and more
- Advise EF teams on internal strategy, integration considerations, and risk analysis related to DeFi
- Lead actionable research on emerging DeFi trends and protocols — covering topics such as restaking risk, novel stablecoin mechanisms, and the DeFi mullet
- Support event planning and ecosystem engagement, including Devcon and other major gatherings
What we look for
- Someone who lives and breathes DeFi, loves reading the latest whitepapers and diving into new protocols
- Strong grasp of DeFi’s history and evolution
- Deep familiarity with DeFi designs and economic mechanisms
- Ability to read smart contract code to evaluate risk and understand protocol behavior
- Curiosity, humility, and a bias toward action
- Ability to collaborate across technical and non-technical teams
- Clear written and verbal communication
