Founding Engineer – Backend

At Shadow, we’re building the end-to-end data platform for crypto.

Blockchain networks are the next evolution of the Internet, yet it’s much too difficult to work with onchain data today. We’re taking a crypto-native approach to reimagine blockchain data infrastructure from the ground up, starting with a product that allows anyone to extract custom data from any smart contract.

We've raised $9M in seed funding led by Paradigm, with additional angels from Coinbase Ventures, Electric Capital, Ethereum Foundation, Uniswap, and Flashbots.

We're a small team who primarily works out of a beautiful office space in NYC.

We’re hiring a founding backend engineer to join our world-class team.

About the role

In this role you’ll be working closely with the CTO to architect and build out the backend infrastructure that powers Shadow. You should get excited about building fast, extensible systems that can handle terabytes of realtime and historical data.

What you'll do (responsibilities)

We're looking for an experienced IC who wants to:

Design and build the new standard for blockchain data infrastructure. You will own large parts of the infrastructure that stores, processes, and indexes terabytes of onchain data.

Own the end-to-end backend implementation for new products. You'll build things in a way that allows us to rapidly iterate our product based on customer feedback.

Crush every other benchmark. We plan to publicly release benchmarks vs other onchain data systems, and your name will be listed prominently for everyone to see.

Drive business outcomes. Performance is a major differentiator in this space. Every optimization you make will lead directly to winning customers and market share.

Our tech stack

• Backend infrastructure built in Rust

• Kubernetes on GCP

• Kafka, BigTable, Postgres, Snowflake/BigQuery

• Typescript and Next.js

• Solidity and Vyper

What we're looking for (qualifications)

You're an ambitious senior or staff-level IC with experience building performant and scalable backend infrastructure and distributed systems.

Excited about designing and building robust infrastructure from the ground up. You think about all the different ways your code could be used, extended, and scaled in the future, not just today. Owning several services and jumping into all of them doesn't scare you.

Interest in onchain data and data infrastructure. You’ve built distributed systems that handle terabytes of data, and are deeply familiar with event-driven architectures.

Curious and quick learning. We don't expect you to have experience in every technology we use, but to learn and be productive quickly. We value people who can quickly obtain a deep technical understanding of new domains.

Pragmatic attention to detail. You hold your work to a high standard. You strive for few slips in code, clean Git hygiene, and clear written communication — all while remaining low-ego and solution oriented.

Good heart. We are a group of friendly ambitious nerds who are effortlessly kind to one another, and we don't tolerate jerks.

Why join

Team — we have a high bar; you'll be on a small team of extremely talented individuals.

Impact — work on stuff that actually matters and will grow crypto as a whole.

Ownership — you will have an extreme level of autonomy over your work.

Who you'll be working with

Emily (Co-Founder and CTO) — Previously Paradigm EIR, and Staff Engineer → Engineering Manager at Airbnb, where she built the realtime indexer for user profiling used sitewide and managed a team of 15 engineers. Has been highly active onchain since DeFi summer 2020.

Alvin (Co-Founder and CEO) — Previously Paradigm EIR, and Designer → Staff Product Manager at Airbnb, where he was the first PM on Airbnb Plus and helped take it from a whiteboard idea to a $100M/yr business in 2.5 years. Has been highly active onchain since DeFi Summer 2020.

Emily and Alvin are siblings and have worked together for the past 8 years!

What we offer (compensation & benefits)

Highly competitive salary and equity — we target 90th percentile compensation for both salary and equity. You’ll be expected to act like an owner, because you are one.

Great healthcare — gold-tier company healthcare plans. We cover 99% of medical, dental, vision premiums for employees, and 50% for dependents.

401k — flexible 401k retirement plan with contribution matching.

In-person culture — we work out of a beautiful office in Soho New York with other early-stage crypto teams, and have a culture of coming in 5 days a week as a default.

Hardware setup — we’ll buy whatever you need to be productive.

Work trials

We’re a fan of paid work trials. We believe they’re the best way to learn whether there’s a mutual fit, and equally beneficial for the candidate as the company.

This is not a requirement, as we understand that every individual’s situation is different. We'll discuss details during the process, but work trials are fully paid, and usually last 3-5 days where we have your full time and focus during the period – e.g. you’ve taken PTO at your full-time job, have no other contract work obligations, etc.