Senior Protocol Engineer - GoLang
Lisbon, Portugal
Engineering /
Full Time /
Remote
Who Are We?
Obol Labs is a remote-first research and software development team focused on Proof of Stake infrastructure for public blockchain networks. Specific topics of focus are Internet Bonds, Distributed Validator Technology, and Multi-Operator Validation. The core team includes 35 members spread across +14 countries.
The core team is building the Obol Network, a protocol to foster trust-minimized staking through multi-operator validation. This will enable low-trust access to Ethereum staking yield, which can be used as a core building block in various Web3 products.
The Network
The network can be best visualized as a work layer that sits directly on top of the base layer consensus. This work layer is designed to provide the base layer with more resiliency and decentralization as it scales. In this chapter of Ethereum, we will move on to the next great scaling challenge, which is stake centralization. Layers like Obol are critical to the long-term viability and resiliency of public networks, especially networks like Ethereum.
Obol as a layer is focused on scaling main chain staking by providing permissionless access to Distributed Validators. The network utilizes a middleware implementation of Distributed Validator Technology (DVT), to enable the operation of distributed validator clusters that can preserve validators' current client and remote signing configurations.
Similar to how roll-up technology laid the foundation for L2 scaling implementations, we believe DVT will do the same for scaling the consensus layer while preserving decentralization. Staking infrastructure is entering its protocol phase of evolution, which must include trust-minimized staking networks that can be plugged into at scale. We believe DVT will evolve into a widely used primitive and will ensure the security, resiliency, and decentralization of public networks.
The Obol Network develops and maintains three core public goods that will eventually work together through circular economics:
The DV Launchpad, a User Interface for bootstrapping and managing Distributed Validators
Charon, a Golang based middleware client that enables validators to run in a fault-tolerant, distributed manner.
Obol Splits, a set of solidity contracts for the formation of Distributed Validators tailored to different use cases such as DeFi, Liquid Staking, and Fractionalized Deposits
Sustainable Public Goods
Obol is inspired by previous work on Ethereum public goods and experimenting with circular economics. We believe that to unlock innovation in staking use cases, a credibly neutral layer must exist for innovation to flow and evolve vertically. Without this layer, highly available uptime will continue to be a moat.
The Obol Network will become an open, community-governed, self-sustaining project over the coming months and years. Together we will incentivize, build, and maintain distributed validator technology that makes public networks a more secure and resilient foundation to build on top of.
Protocol Engineers focus on developing Obol’s Distributed Validator client and Distributed Validator Protocol specification.
Charon is a GoLang-based middleware that sits within a Validator stack and enables active/active fault tolerance for Ethereum staking.
The goal of this role is to improve the performance and reliability of the Charon client, while adding new features such as mutable clusters, asynchronous consensus protocols, and faster networking.
Expected start date April/May.
Responsibilities
- Implement a PVSS distributed validator key generation scheme into Charon.
- Develop asynchronous consensus protocols for use within Charon.
- Develop byzantine fault tolerant protocol upgrade mechanisms for DV clusters.
- Develop and compare different networking protocols and their impact on DV performance. (From TCP to UDP to QUIC)
- Integrate directly with MEV relays to reduce latency in block production.
- Improve charon’s reliability through systematic testing including unit, disturbance, chaos, fuzz, integration and other methodologies.
- Improve the software engineering culture at Obol by being a leader in GoLang development best practices.
Requirements
- +3 years of experience working in GoLang
- Experience developing distributed systems
- Strong understanding of Internet networking
- Experience working in a distributed remote team
- Prefer timezone between UTC-2 to UTC+3
Nice to have
- Professional experience working with Ethereum
- Knowledge of cryptography and digital signature schemes
Benefits
- Working with us means collaborating with the top minds of the ETH ecosystem!
- We are a fully remote working company with flexible hours (Work from any place in the world)
- Meet the team in our Annual offsite
- Attend Crypto and staking conferences
- Life balance: We have unlimited paid time off
- Budget for equipment
- Training budget
Join us to rock the staking space!
Thank you for your interest. Looking forward to building amazing stuff together!
