Smart Contract Engineer
UMA
Remote
USD 100k-200k / year + Equity
Posted on Apr 4, 2025
UMA Purpose: UMA is the canonical source of truth that blockchains use to verify real world data.
UMA Vision: UMA enables any verifiable truth to be recorded on-chain, trustlessly.
Who is Risk Labs?
Risk Labs is the foundation and core team behind UMA, and some top tier products built with it such as oSnap, Oval, and the Across protocol . The Risk Labs team, operates as one cohesive (amazing!) culture, but focuses on two core protocols, UMA and Across. UMA and Across are decentralized protocols governed by community members across the globe in DAOs, and are supported by Risk Labs Foundation. UMA's optimistic oracle (OO) can record any verifiable truth or data onto a blockchain. Across is leading the future of interoperability with its frontier intents based architecture.
Where do you fit in?
We’re looking for a Jr. Smart Contract Engineer to join the UMA protocol team. You, alongside top tier talent, would be working on the core Optimistic Oracle (OO) as well as industry leaders such as oSnap and Oval. As a team, we’re excited to expand UMA’s protocol beyond the truth machine that it is today, and push the boundaries of DeFi in a meaningful way. Oracles, MEV, OEV, governance, optimistic solutions are all heavily baked into your day to day work.
Responsibilities
- Protocol Architecture: Research and develop protocol upgrades and new financial concepts.
- Smart Contracts: Implement designs with a focus on security, simplicity, ease of use, and gas-efficiency.
- Code Review and Mentorship: Write code in a highly collaborative open source ecosystem. In depth reviews of others’ contributions is expected with a focus on helping others grow their technical expertise.
- Bots: write off-chain code to interact with and manage smart contracts. Bot systems should have a high degree of correctness, efficiency, and anti-fragility.
- These responsibilities are going to be similar to the Sr. Smart Contract role posted; however, as a junior engineer, we have lower expectations about your previous experience. That doesn’t mean our expectations are low, instead we have higher expectations for the demonstrable and uncanny ability to learn and apply new concepts quickly. Someone who is exceptionally keen to learn and invest their time with us, in exchange for us investing in their growth. Someone who we hire for this role will become proficient in the above categories.
- Language experience is not as important as your demonstrated ability to learn quickly but our language stack is simply: Typescript, Solidity, GCP
Requirements
- 2+ years of experience in engineering at a software organization. This can include multiple internships, what we want to see is your familiarity with engineering best practices (sprints, code review, etc.) and a level of professionalism.
- 1+ years of working with blockchain-based projects (think hackathons or personal projects as well), and a deep passion for blockchain technology, cryptoeconomic protocol design, game theory, or decentralized finance
- Experience with databases, networking, and data pipelines is strongly preferred
- Outstanding critical thinking skills; low ego, high curiosity and comfort in being wrong
- Love for great software; desire to understand the why and the how of everything you work on
- Demonstrated ability to learn new tech and write secure and clean code
- Passion for blockchain technology, cryptonomic protocol design, game theory, and decentralized finance
- Growth mindset; a desire to learn from and mentor those around you
- Strong communication and collaboration skills, especially written
Compensation and Benefits
- Pay packages include competitive salaries & meaningful token options.
- Salaries for this role range from $100-200k (USD), and your token allocation can grow with your voting rewards while you participate in the growing ecosystem.
- Will pay in stablecoins or fiat.
- Philosophies for a culture that show we care: Take vacation when you need it, family care, training and development (just to name a few)
- 100% remote, which means we encourage you to create the work environment that you thrive in
- We are a globally distributed team and require all employees to have at least 3-4 hours of daily overlap with Eastern Standard Time (EST) to ensure seamless collaboration and communication. This allows us to work effectively across time zones while maintaining a strong team connection
- At least two team wide offsites a year.
Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. Risk Labs, the employing entity, is an equal opportunity employer and is dedicated to diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplaces. So, if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t perfectly align- we encourage you to apply anyways. We value you taking the chance. Risk labs will not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
Our values:
1) We value each individual’s right to economic freedom.
2) We value openness, honesty, and directness.
3) We value integrity.
4) We value iterative learning.
5) We value taking smart risks.
6) We value creating an environment where everyone “does their best work”.
Why do we love working at Risk Labs?
We are a group that's aligned with the ethos of the crypto industry and doing our best to make an impact for the industry and world at large. You’ll succeed with Risk Labs if you’re a self-starter, kind, adaptable, and passionate about making an impact. Risk Labs is a values driven team that strives to create an environment where we can do our best work, and succeed. We're building products that we believe in, and continuing to strive for innovation and growth. Both personally and professionally we support each other to create a happy, healthy, and inspired team vibe, so we can remain motivated to build things the world needs and loves. We take pride in the fact that we are at once family-friendly as well as nomad-friendly.
UMA's optimistic oracle is a decentralized truth machine for Web3- yes, that’s a bold and very exciting statement. We’ve built a solid foundation, in terms of the team, the technology, and the products, and the road map ahead is one full of exciting technical challenges, growth, and telling our story to the world. Across is creating an interoperable world where DeFi is seamless with its intents based architecture. We’ve grown from an early bridge, to a market leader, and won’t stop innovating and building. We have big dreams, and a team excited to bring them to life.
Still want to know more?
- Our team blends a mix of highly-sought engineers, and a diverse business team to showcase their high quality tech. Our international and fast-growing team includes a diverse background of experiences and has drawn world class talent. We have a great network of supportive investors from groups like: Placeholder, Blockchain Capital, Bain Capital, Coinbase, Dragonfly... to name a few.
- Teammates take the time off that they need and support each other to be their best selves- we care about your wellness.
- You will not get bored with Risk Labs. We are constantly developing, building, experimenting and evolving. Yes we try to allow people to focus on their specific product areas, but things are always shifting and evolving. There’s no right answer and we’re all just doing our best!