Category Labs (formerly known as Monad Labs) is a team of systems engineers and researchers on a mission to design and build at the frontier of decentralized technology. We strive to design and build step-function improvements over existing blockchain solutions. After recently raising $225M in series A funding, led by Paradigm, we are growing our team.
We are looking for strong software engineers who enjoy solving challenging problems in performance engineering and/or distributed systems. Experience with crypto is not expected.
You will work closely with the rest of our team to design, build, and test innovations on different parts of the distributed system, such as mechanisms for transaction sequencing, propagation, and execution; signature verification; node recovery; historical state lookup, etc.
You’ll be given a lot of responsibility, and you’ll work on high-impact problems that are core to our team’s mission. You will learn a lot by being part of a small, hyper-focused team with high engineering standards and coding practices. We want you to maximize learning, both through mentorship from senior engineers and through ownership of tough problems.
You’ll research, design, and build core improvements to the technology, such as consensus mechanism, block dissemination, state synchronization algorithm, staking module, etc.
You’ll devise experiments to test worst-case scenarios, and iterate on your design based on the results in internal test networks
You’ll design components while surveying the behavior of other blockchain systems such as rollups, bridges, or staking systems
You’ll build performant system components from scratch in Rust or C++
You are one of the following:
A CS (or equivalent) undergraduate
MSCS student graduating no later than May 2025
You have 0-3 years of software engineering experience
You’re fluent in C++ or Rust
You have taken an Operating Systems class and have excellent knowledge of operating systems fundamentals (concurrency, memory management)
You’ve challenged yourself on advanced topics beyond the CS major requirements (topics like operating systems, RTOS, compilers, cryptography, performance engineering, parallel computing)
You’ve made significant contributions to a large, challenging project (bonus points for open-source contributions)
You have experience with writing performant code and utilizing tools like perf and valgrind to identify hotspots
You are extremely curious; you’re motivated to understand details of how systems work
You’re resourceful and independent
You understand the importance of excellent communication and documentation
(Bonus) You have experience with kernel development
Challenging problems. You’ll work on extremely challenging problems with massive impact.
Huge opportunity. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) standard is ubiquitous, but existing EVM-compatible chains are very slow. Monad’s core innovations offer developers the best of both worlds (portability and performance) and are a game-changer for mass user adoption in crypto.
The right team. You’ll be part of a small, exceptional team (engineers and researchers make up 90% of the team).
Culture. We’re a lean team working together to achieve very ambitious goals. We are united in our culture of collaboration, low ego, and high-quality output. As an early member of our team, you’ll help to shape our culture.
Compensation. You’ll receive a competitive salary and equity package.
Resources and growth. We’re well-capitalized, with backing from leading venture funds like Paradigm, Electric Capital, Greenoaks, Dragonfly, and Coinbase Ventures. We keep a lean team, and this is a rare opportunity to join. You’ll learn a lot and grow as our company scales.
Target full-time salary of $200,000. (**This is not a guarantee of compensation or salary; a final offer amount may vary based on factors including but not limited to experience, domain expertise, and geographic location.)
Category Labs’ benefits for US-based full-time employees include medical, dental, and vision insurance (100% coverage for employees); unlimited and encouraged paid time off; monthly mental health, daily lunch stipend (NYC office); monthly fitness stipend; paid parental leave; and 10 company-observed holidays.
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