Protocol Systems Engineer - Python

About Powerloom

Powerloom Protocol is a composable data network primarily aimed at serving the onchain data needs of smart contract-based applications within DeFi, GameFi, NFTs, and more. We incentivize participating peers to reach a consensus on state transitions and event emissions observations across many smart contracts. By utilizing data compositions on atomic, consensus-backed units of data, Powerloom stands as a peer-validated and accurate information source, empowering rich data applications like dashboards, bots, aggregators, and insights trackers.

Learn more: https://powerloom.io/

This position allows you to be fully remote and comes with all the benefits and room for creative freedom that one would expect from such a role. We meet once every 8-10 weeks to converge on our direction, touch base and keep the team spirit intact.

Before you apply

Please do not apply in case you don't have the freedom to join on an immediate basis or have a notice period longer than 4 weeks at your present employment

The following will help you get a complete picture of the work we do and the systems we build. Having a comprehensive understanding of the same would be considered an appropriate demonstration of interest and keenness.

• Official Blog
• Docs
• Github

Share links to your open source contributions or projects to prioritize your place in the selection process. Original projects, hackathon entries, bounty submissions have the potential to get a pass straight to the technical evaluation round without a screening round.

Responsibilities

A protocol systems engineer at Powerloom is fundamentally responsible for the following across a broad range of modules and components:

• Protocol Development and Optimization

  • Implementing protocol enhancements to improve performance and scalability
  • Collaborating with Core team to build new features

• System architecting

  • sequence diagrams, functional diagrams etc
  • behavior mapping

• Building monitoring and observability systems

  • Analyzing system performance and identifying bottlenecks
  • Support internal teams
  • Support external clients, for eg, node operators

• Building clean interfaces and connectors

  • Documentation
  • API collections and test suites

• Community and Developer Support

  • Engaging with the developer community to provide technical assistance and gather feedback
  • Creating technical content, such as tutorials, FAQs, and best practices, to facilitate adoption and usage

Skills

Web3 and Python

Must haves

• Programmable blockchains
  • RPC to interact with blockchain clients, for eg, Ethereum JSONRPC API
• Python and web3 libraries. web3.py, eth-utils etc
• Asynchronous modules and frameworks
  • asyncio
  • FastAPI
  • websockets
  • overall clear understanding of asynchronous patterns in Python so as to quickly pick up and apply any relevant async module to development
• Smart contract development, testing and prototyping tools and frameworks
  • Hardhat
  • Foundry
  • Remix
• DeFi concepts and implementations

Nice to haves

• Hands on knowledge of at least two major DeFi protocols
  • the math behind them
  • smart contract design and architecture
  • swaps, lending, borrowing,
  • cross DeFi protocol composability
  • cross chain composability

Backend and systems engineering

Must haves

• Decentralized systems

  • data structures of blocks/transactions/proofs/storage

• Scaling services with distributed systems

  • caching
  • queue based worker systems
  • concurrency primitives
  • Docker

Nice haves

• Data vectorization and wrangling in Python
• Timeseries data analysis
• Database engines(SQL, NoSQL, FlatFile)
  • Appropriate database selection based on storage needs
  • Applications of cryptography for efficient storage

What do you get out this

Just as with any engineering role at PowerLoom Protocol, you will be working at an exciting intersection of diverse techincal as well as non-technical fields like Web3 tools/frameworks/protocols, decentralized/distributed systems, game theory, cryptoeconomics, DeFi(decentralized finance), to name a few. You will be interfacing with multitude of internal as well as external stakeholders in relation to the systems that you will be responsible for.

Remote Work Culture - Benefits and Expectations

• Flexible Work Hours: Enjoy freedom with flexible work hours, and experience zero micro-management over hours clocked and other trivial issues.
• Health and Fitness Culture: Being healthy and fit is an integral part of our company culture. Our Slack channels mirror this wellness-focused attitude.
• Asynchronous Communication is Key: Ability to communicate and coordinate asynchronously is vital for the success of remote teams. We expect every team member to be committed to this communication style. Be adept at long-form, asynchronous communication throughout every step of the planning and development lifecycle.
• Documentation and Clarity: Document all design decisions. Maintain architecture diagrams and references for all modules. Ensure clear and complete information presentation on Slack, eliminating the need for second-guessing and extrapolation by other team members. Proactively ask questions to your assigned mentor and all stakeholders involved in the design, development, and testing of the feature/codebase/architecture.
• Synchronous Communication: When synchronous communication is required, coordinate well in advance. Block calendars mutually to minimize scheduling conflicts and ensure productive discussions.

General Must-haves

• Ability to listen unbiasedly and gather requirements as accurately described in calls/meetings, architectural discussions and engineering documents
• Ability to clearly communicate progress, blockers and perform independent research
• Ability to document and take ownership of the functional correctness of any assigned work
• Ability to quickly iterate, learn from mistakes and apply lessons from the same as future strategy

Cherry on top

These skills are not a strict requirement to qualify for the role yet can add the extra edge required to engineer a protocol like PowerLoom:

• Experience of working extensively with Git and project management tools that enable fast development and coordination across multiple teams in the future
• Experience with NoSQL data stores and caches like Redis/Memcached
• Knowledge of Unix/Linux fundamentals - shell scripting, CLI tools etc.
• Familiar with deploying and managing services on cloud platforms like AWS/GCP/Azure

If the vision of fostering a vibrant, interconnected Web3 ecosystem excites you, we urge you to apply.

We promise, you won't be disappointed.