Location: Flexible (with frequent on-site work at financial institutions)
Type: Full-time
The Ethereum Institute is a nonprofit focused on accelerating institutional adoption of Ethereum. We work directly with financial institutions, market infrastructure providers, and ecosystem builders to help design and deploy Ethereum-based solutions.
We are seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer who can sit in the room with senior stakeholders at banks, asset managers, custodians, and other financial institutions, and work hands-on on problem framing, technical scoping, and early solution design. This role sits at the intersection of engineering, product, and client advisory, and is ideal for a technically strong engineer who can operate comfortably in institutional environments.
Key Responsibilities
- Join client-facing sessions with financial institutions to understand their workflows, systems, and constraints, and translate them into concrete Ethereum-based solution opportunities.
- Lead technical discovery and scoping: map integration points, identify relevant infrastructure (custody, nodes, L2s, tokenization stacks), and outline technical architectures.
- Build proofs-of-concept, reference implementations, and technical demos that help institutions understand how Ethereum can support tokenization, stablecoins, onchain finance, and related use cases.
- Work closely with institutional stakeholders (IT, architecture, risk, compliance, and product teams) to address practical integration questions and constraints.
- Produce clear technical documentation, diagrams, and implementation notes that can be handed off to internal teams or external vendors.
- Collaborate with ecosystem teams (infra providers, protocol teams, tooling vendors) to align institutional needs with available technology.
- Provide feedback into the Institute's content, standards, and best-practice work based on real-world engagements.
Candidate Profile
- 5–10+ years of hands-on software engineering experience (e.g., backend, infrastructure, or full-stack) working with production systems.
- Strong familiarity with Ethereum: smart contracts, tooling, basic protocol-level concepts, and at least one major language (e.g., Solidity, TypeScript, Python, or Go).
- Experience integrating with financial or fintech systems (APIs, messaging, core banking, trading or settlement infrastructure, custody, etc.), or close collaboration with such teams.
- Ability to communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, including senior institutional decision-makers.
- Comfortable operating in client environments: asking structured questions, framing problems, and steering discussions toward concrete technical options.
- Pragmatic and solution-oriented mindset, with the ability to move from "whiteboard" to working prototypes.
Preferred Qualifications
- Prior experience in a forward-deployed / solutions engineering / field engineering / technical consultant role.
- Experience with institutional digital-asset projects (tokenization, custody, settlement, stablecoins, or related initiatives).
- Familiarity with cloud, security, and compliance considerations typical for financial institutions.
- Experience creating internal tools, reference architectures, or reusable components that accelerate future engagements.
What We Offer
- The opportunity to work directly with leading financial institutions on their earliest Ethereum initiatives.
- A role with high visibility into both the institutional and Ethereum ecosystem sides.
- Flexible, mission-driven environment with scope to shape best practices and standards.
- Competitive compensation aligned with experience.
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