Engineer

Today’s blockchain stack is designed to be a jack of all trades, but master of none. Modeled after virtual machines (VM) and kernels, it exposes a monolithic interface through a one-size-fits-all framework instead of molding to the needs of any specific application.

At Commonware, we believe that the most popular onchain experiences of the next decade will develop a sustained edge through vertical integration. To accelerate developers that share this perspective, we are building a library of open (MIT/Apache-2) primitives meant to be remixed and modded.

Backed by Haun Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, Mert Mumtaz, Nick White, Dan Romero, Sreeram Kannan, and other experienced operators, Commonware is now hiring for ambitious engineers that can help us expand the Commonware Library to a broader set of applications and support customers, like Tempo, with novel infrastructure built for it.

Today, we are a lean team of 8 focused on staying small, nimble, and accountable: Patrick O’Grady (Founder, ex-VP Engineering at Ava Labs, designed Coinbase Rosetta/Mesh), Brendan Chou (First Hire and Head of Engineering at dYdX), Roberto Bayardo (Distinguished Engineer at Google and Coinbase), Dan Laine (Engineer at Ava Labs), Lucas Meier (Cryptographer at Penumbra Labs), Ben Clabby (Engineer at Optimism), André Silva (Consensus at Parity), Andrew Lewis-Pye (Researcher at LSE). We are spread around the globe but assemble at our new office in Palo Alto every few months to fill whiteboards and play arcade games.

We don't hire engineers for specific tasks. We hire great people with differentiated experience in a specific area and expect them to direct their focus to the highest priority task.

At this time, we are looking for folks that have spent years building any of the following:

• Streaming unstructured data over globally distributed infrastructure

• Designing and testing onchain execution environments

• Optimizing cryptographic primitives (with math and assembly)

• Pushing the performance of embedded databases to the limit

• Crafting intuitive experiences for users to explore fast blockchains

We consider each candidate on a case-by-case basis and don't have a minimum set of requirements any individual must satisfy (other than being based in the United States).

That being said, we've found the following to be a good predictor of fit:

• You excelled as a programmer, went on to lead a productive engineering organization, but ultimately yearn to build things.

• You maintained a large open-source codebase (especially in Rust).

• You shop at IKEA because you enjoy building your own furniture.

• You understand the difference between writing code and writing the right code.

• You dive into rabbit holes rather than running from them.

• Your humor is xkcd-forward.

Commonware, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.

We comply with all applicable federal, state, and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.