About Pagoda

Pagoda is the first-ever Web3 Startup Platform where developers and entrepreneurs can build, launch, and operate new blockchain-based products and services. As a primary builder of the NEAR Protocol, Pagoda delivers capacity, velocity, simplicity, and affordability needed to power tomorrow’s Web3 startups.

We are looking for an innovative, empathetic, and productive person who is excited about building the next generation of crypto startups, feels comfortable challenging opinions, and most importantly who shares with us the same desire to make the web free again.

We encourage people of all backgrounds to apply. Pagoda is committed to creating an inclusive culture, and we celebrate diversity of all kinds.

What You’ll Get For Joining:

Flexible Annual Leave / PTO with an encouraged 20 day per year minimum

Paid Holiday Week: the last week of the year

Paid Wellness Week: the first week of July

$2,000 Yearly Continued Education Reimbursement

$2,000 Home Office Setup Reimbursement

Co-working Space Reimbursement

Company Retreats (2022 was in Lisbon!) & Team Offsites

Mental Health Support and access to licensed therapists through Spill, 100% paid by Pagoda

About The Role:

The Protocol Engineering team at Pagoda is responsible for the infrastructure of Layer 1 Blockchain, NEAR Protocol. We focus on building scalable, performant, and reliable infrastructure to actualize visions of NEAR Protocol, such as the Blockchain Operating System (BOS).

We are growing our engineering team that develops the Blockchain protocol specification and its implementation. You will be working with complex concurrent systems, complicated state machines, and novel algorithms powering NEAR Protocol blockchain.

You will own various components and drive critical decisions throughout their life cycles, including architecture, implementation, and maintenance. You will collaborate with highly knowledgeable and skilled colleagues who are passionate about solving hard problems that can disrupt the industry.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Collaboration with a fully distributed team around the world

• Architecture and implementation of complex blockchain components in Rust

• End-to-end ownership of critical blockchain components

• Design/proposal of new blockchain protocol changes

• Performance optimizations and scalability/reliability improvements of Blockchain

• Open source community contribution by collaborating with external contributors on our codebase and participating in community events

• Participating in the on-call rotation

What We’re Looking For:

• Fluency with algorithms and data structures

• Agility to quickly learn new languages and technologies

• Ability to write clean yet efficient code

• Creativity to come up with proof of concept from high level design while not knowing all the details

• Experience with concurrency or parallelism

• Meticulousness to lay out priorities and methodically make progress towards the goal

• Good communication skills to convey your ideas and discuss with team members for technical challenges

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or a related field

We’d Love If You Have:

• Experience with internals of NEAR protocol or other blockchains

• Professional experience with Rust alternatively but less preferred C++ or Go

• Experience in building a blockchain smart contract or running a node in a blockchain network

• Knowledge of cryptography

• Experience with networks or operating systems

Here’s What Our Interview Process Looks Like:

Depending on calendar availability, from the first stage to the final stage, we do our best to keep the entire process to under three weeks. Our interviews take place via Zoom and typically consists of the following stages:

• Internal Recruiter Call (30 to 45 minutes)

• Meet with the Hiring Manager (45 minutes)

• Technical Interviews (3-4 x 60 minutes)

• Culture & Values Interview (45 minutes)

Please let us know if you require any special requirements for your interview and we’ll do our best to accommodate.

Ideal Location For This Role

This is a fully remote role, so that your timezone matches or overlaps with our leadership for this role, you’ll ideally be located in North America or Europe. Our Values at Pagoda

Innovate and deliver—so our customers can build. We deliver new solutions for real, often urgent, customer needs. Practical over hype. We uphold our standards of excellence while balancing velocity and pragmatism.

Focus precious time and energy on what matters. We are intentional about where we aim our resources. We channel our talents to focus on the critical missions in order to make an outsized impact.

Favor ownership, agency and action. Everyone is an owner. As individuals, we are responsible and accountable for our work. We empower builders to make decisions and innovate without the burden of unnecessary roadblocks or complexity.

Work as a team of empathetic humans. We practice mutual respect, open communication, humility and collaboration. We are kind and empathetic. We are welcoming towards diversity in all forms, including differences of perspective.

Never break trust. Integrity is rare—and valuable—in this space. Reputation is hard to build and easy to break.