Chainbound is a research and development organization that builds optimized blockchain infrastructure and products. We specialize in networking, performance engineering and applied cryptography. The company has 2 arms: product and advisory. The product arm does high-level R&D with the goal of finding and executing on product ideas. The advisory arm deploys our engineers across projects in the industry to solve their hardest problems. Product and advisory are synergetic.

About the Team

We are a remote-first company with a lean team of 6, with English as our primary language. We work in the European time zone and require employees to do the same. Chainbound employs a hybrid work culture, and we regularly work together from our current office in Milan.

We are looking for self-starters with a builder-first mentality excited about working in a fast-paced environment. At Chainbound, we value proactivity, curiosity, perseverance and communication. Everyone has the agency to direct what we work on. As a tight-knit and lean unit, we have a team-first mentality, and leverage the right tools to amplify our collective output. We do not believe in single-person projects and always work in teams of at least 2 people.

About the Role

We are looking for a founding-level technical leader to build and lead Chainbound’s advisory arm. This is a high-ownership role at the intersection of technical execution, client development, project delivery, and team leadership. You will be responsible for growing advisory into a world-class R&D practice: sourcing and closing high-value projects, leading client relationships, ensuring excellent delivery, and setting the operating standards for the function.

Projects typically span weeks to a few months and range from greenfield protocol work to improving existing production systems. For an idea of the types of projects and engineering the advisory works on, check out our engineering blog.

Your core responsibilities will include:

• Own advisory growth: identify, develop, and close high-quality advisory opportunities through Chainbound’s network and your own relationships.
• Lead and contribute to advisory projects, which means being able to adhere to strict deadlines, being pragmatic in finding solutions, communicating clearly with customers, collaborating effectively with other engineers, and writing clear technical documentation.
• Conduct collaborative and independent research to guide the development of current and future Chainbound products or collaborations, particularly in protocol and systems design.
• Contribute to and maintain our open-source projects like msg-rs, prometric, which are used in a lot of our client’s projects.
• Strategically and continuously strive for improvement, proactively self-learning technologies that you lack in.

Who You Are

• Engineer with a strong background on distributed systems, (P2P) networking, and performance engineering. Cryptography implementation skills are a plus.
• Proven ability to lead teams, manage complex technical projects, and communicate effectively with clients and stakeholders.
• A strong network in crypto infrastructure, protocol engineering, distributed systems, or adjacent technical ecosystems.
• Programming experience with Rust, open-source work is a big plus.
• Familiarity with cryptography concepts like asymmetric cryptography, PKI, zero knowledge, MPC, TEEs.
• Some experience with DevOps, CI/CD, monitoring production systems on the cloud or bare metal.
• Self-driven, able to work independently as well as part of a team.
• Comfortable using modern AI-assisted development tools to improve research and engineering velocity.