Engineering Team Lead

About Alpen Labs

Alpen Labs is a New York-based startup founded in 2022 by four MIT alumni. Our mission is to build universal rails for money by creating a scalable, private and programmable Bitcoin ecosystem. We're achieving this through cutting-edge innovations in zero-knowledge cryptography and offchain solutions, without compromising Bitcoin's fundamental principles.

This endeavor is not just about technological advancement but a step towards a more resilient, free, and prosperous global society. Our current team consists of engineers and researchers from companies like Blockstream Research, Palantir, and Nethermind. We invite passionate individuals to join us in navigating this complex, yet rewarding journey towards redefining financial sovereignty.

About The Role

As an Engineering Team Lead, you will be responsible for leading a high-impact team focused on delivering production-grade infrastructure for our protocol. You'll set the technical direction, support the team through mentorship and collaboration, and ensure we ship high-quality code. This is a hands-on leadership role that combines people management with technical depth—you’ll guide architecture decisions, contribute to the codebase, and help shape our roadmap alongside product and protocol leads.

What You’ll Do

• Lead and grow a team of talented engineers working on core infrastructure and protocol components
• Set and uphold engineering best practices, including code quality, testing, and documentation
• Collaborate with product, protocol, and infra teams to define and deliver on roadmap priorities
• Participate in architecture design and technical planning across the stack
• Provide regular coaching, support career growth, and lead performance reviews for your team
• Help with hiring and onboarding new engineers as the team scales
• Ensure the team is focused, unblocked, and shipping high-impact work on time

What we are looking for

• Have 6+ years of software engineering experience, including 2+ years in a technical management role
• Experience with Rust, EVM-compatible chains, and L2 technologies
• Have strong experience with systems programming (Rust, Go, or similar) and/or full stack development
• Experience contributing to open source projects or building public-facing developer tools
• Are comfortable leading projects from architecture to deployment in a fast-paced, high-trust environment
• Have worked in crypto, distributed systems, or infrastructure teams with a strong focus on reliability and performance
• Understand the importance of good developer experience and clear documentation
• Are excited to work in a small, mission-driven team building foundational infrastructure

What we offer

We invite our new hires to actively contribute to the evolution of cutting-edge technologies within the blockchain space. This presents a unique opportunity to innovate and devise creative solutions for complex engineering challenges. To support your journey, we commit to providing all the resources necessary for your learning, growth, and productivity.

Moreover, our compensation package is designed to mirror the passion, dedication, and hard work you invest in your role. We recognize and appreciate your contributions by aligning your exceptional commitment with generous compensation.

Key skills/competency

• Engineering Leadership
• Rust Programming
• EVM-compatible Chains
• Layer 2 Technologies
• Distributed Systems
• Zero-Knowledge Cryptography
• Bitcoin Ecosystem
• Technical Architecture
• Software Development Life Cycle
• Team Mentorship