Senior Software Engineer at Category Labs

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 deliver significant improvements over existing blockchain solutions. After raising $225M in series A funding, led by Paradigm, we are growing our team. We’re the team behind Monad, a high-performance, EVM-compatible Layer 1 whose public mainnet is now live. We write the core software that runs it: a parallel-execution EVM , a custom state database, and a BFT consensus client , all developed in the open. The Role We’re hiring a Senior Software Engineer to research, design, and build core improvements to the Monad protocol. Your work will involve distributed algorithms, cryptography, and consensus mechanisms. You’ll draw on previous experience in distributed systems or blockchain engineering, and work as a vital member of a small, high-performing team. What You’ll Do Design and implement core improvements to the consensus mechanism, gossip protocol, state synchronization algorithm, leader election protocol, etc. Devise experiments to test worst-case scenarios, and iterate on your design based on the results. Design components while taking into account the behavior of other blockchain systems such as rollups, bridges, or staking systems. Build performant system components from scratch in C++ or Rust. Who You Are You have at least 5 years of software engineering experience in Rust, C++, or C. You have significant experience building performant systems from scratch, such as databases, device drivers, or embedded systems. You have excellent instincts for software architecture, memory management, and performance optimization and profiling tools. You hold a Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Computer Science, or have equivalent experience. You value communication and collaboration. Why Work with Us Challenging problems: You’ll work on extremely challenging problems with massive impact. See our Blogs and Publications & Talks for a flavor of the problems we are solving in the real world. 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). Open by default: Our core software is public on GitHub. You’ll build in the open, and your work ships where the whole ecosystem can see it. 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 ventur