Job description
About the Ethereum Foundation
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) is a global non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Ethereum and related technologies. Our mission is to do what is best for Ethereum’s long-term success. Our role is to allocate resources to critical projects, to be a valued voice within the Ethereum ecosystem, and to advocate for Ethereum to the outside world.
Background
Protocol is the Ethereum Foundation’s R&D group, with the mission of bringing the world computer to the world. Our research, engineering and delivery teams work at the frontier of multiple domains to execute on Ethereum’s ambitious roadmap without compromising on our guiding principles.
About this Role
The Performance Engineering Lead at Protocol will drive the scalability and robustness of Ethereum in real-world production scenarios. Your primary mission will be ensuring Ethereum can meet the demands of global usage at scale. You will collaborate closely with our internal DevOps team, EthPandaOps, Ethereum client teams, and applied researchers to identify and resolve bottlenecks, improve node and network performance, and enhance Ethereum’s overall efficiency in live, production environments.
You’ll be responsible for:
- Establishing a comprehensive approach to performance monitoring, profiling, and optimization specifically tailored for large-scale production deployments of Ethereum nodes, such as RPC services.
- Working closely with EthPandaOps and external ecosystem stakeholders to identify, analyze, and resolve performance issues at scale.
- Analyze and improve industry standard approaches used for node snapshots and quick restores used by large scale deployments of Ethereum nodes.
- Developing and refining tools, benchmarks, and best practices to ensure optimal performance of Ethereum across diverse, real world distributed deployments.
- Collaborating with Ethereum client teams and researchers to translate performance insights into actionable improvements for Ethereum clients and core infrastructure.
- Guiding strategic decisions through rigorous data-driven analysis and clearly communicating bottlenecks and proposed solutions to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Comprehensively surveying various performance bottlenecks affecting Ethereum scalability, including state, data, execution, and node performance, and identifying candidate solutions to systematically address each one.
This role is ideal for a senior engineer who thrives in environments combining complex distributed systems, large-scale monitoring, and data-driven performance optimization.
Requirements
- 5+ years experience in performance engineering, distributed systems, or infrastructure roles, ideally with direct responsibility for large-scale production deployments.
- Demonstrated experience profiling distributed systems, systematically identifying bottlenecks, and delivering clear, measurable performance improvements.
- Strong hands-on experience operating clusters of distributed nodes or services, particularly in production scenarios with high user traffic. Ideally with experience in Kubernetes, Nomad or a large scale orchestration platform.
- Familiarity with Ethereum node infrastructure or equivalent distributed systems, and a deep understanding of their performance characteristics.
- Exceptional collaborative and communication skills, with proven ability to work cross-functionally and align diverse stakeholders on performance-driven outcomes.
Bonus Experience
- Direct experience managing clusters of Ethereum nodes (e.g., RPC endpoints, validator nodes, indexing services) under high-volume conditions.
- Proven expertise in performance profiling and optimization of blockchain infrastructure or similar highly complex distributed systems.
- Experience collaborating closely with DevOps teams to streamline deployments and establish robust, continuous performance monitoring systems.
How we work
Protocol isn’t a traditional workplace: it demands and rewards clarity, rapid execution, and genuine commitment to Ethereum’s mission. Distinct aspects of our work environment include:
- Ethereum, period: the EF is in the privileged position where it only needs to consider what is best for Ethereum, without other constraints. This opens the door for unconventional strategies and bold approaches that wouldn’t be possible if we had to optimize for anything else.
- Public by Default: Most contributions happen in the open, coordinating with stakeholders across the broader Ethereum community. This requires proactive engagement, clear communication, and effective collaboration without direct authority, even (and especially!) when consensus is challenging.
- Agency, Impact & Accountability: You’ll have substantial freedom to define your own approach, experiment, and take ownership over your decisions. But with this autonomy comes clear accountability. Your work will be measured both by its immediate strategic impact, and also by its second-order effects across Ethereum’s ecosystem.
This isn’t a fit for everyone, but for motivated, independent individuals, it’s uniquely empowering.
Contract Details
- This is a full-time role, fully remote. Hours are flexible, but you should generally be available around “Eth o’clock” (14:00 UTC) for synchronous calls.
- Additionally, while this isn’t a strict requirement, you’ll benefit from being able to travel a few times a year to events related to your work, such as devcon, or interop.
- Lastly, anons are welcome to apply and work under a pseudonym, but will need to KYC with the Ethereum Foundation.
