DeFi Specialist

The Role of a DeFi Specialist at Monad Foundation

The Monad Foundation is a team dedicated to building ecosystems and communities, striving to significantly expand the influence of decentralized technology. We firmly believe that the Monad blockchain—our high-performance, parallel EVM Layer 1—is key to enabling decentralized applications to achieve global adoption.

As a DeFi Specialist, you will be the operational cornerstone for driving DeFi growth across the Monad network. This is a highly hands-on and execution-focused position, ideal for someone with encyclopedic knowledge of DeFi protocols, strong convictions regarding asset quality, and exceptional coordination skills to facilitate the onboarding of new protocols and assets, from initial discussion to a fully live and liquid market.

You will collaborate directly with builders deploying on the Monad network, offering expert advice on protocol mechanics, identifying product voids, and assisting them in launching superior products. Your role involves evaluating which assets are suitable for the ecosystem while rigorously assessing hidden risks. You will orchestrate efforts across various components, including oracles, liquidators, DEX pools, curators, and bridges, to ensure a seamless onboarding process. Furthermore, you will continuously monitor the entire state of DeFi on the Monad network, promptly detecting issues and recommending optimal allocation of time or incentives for maximum ecosystem impact.

If you can quickly dissect an unfamiliar protocol frontend and produce a sharp, actionable teardown within 30 minutes, this DeFi Specialist role is for you.

What You Will Do

• Advise DeFi builders on the Monad network with succinct, hard-hitting feedback on protocol design, UX, market positioning, and competitive gaps. You should be able to open any Monad-native protocol's site and quickly produce an actionable list of strengths and weaknesses.
• Execute end-to-end onboarding of new protocols and assets, coordinating across oracles, liquidators, DEX pool setup, curators, and bridging providers to bring new markets live.
• Prioritize which assets to bring to the Monad network based on market demand, composability value, and rigorous risk assessment. Research new assets and evaluate bridging mechanics, relative interest rates, liquidity depth, redemption windows, reserve transparency, and issuer controls.
• Monitor the state of DeFi on the Monad network and flag gaps, imbalances, or inefficiencies. Recommend where to allocate time or incentive spend to address ecosystem-level problems.
• Inform incentive strategy with grounded opinions on what types of programs attract durable TVL per unit of spend versus what generates mercenary capital.
• Grow DeFi on the Monad network substantially, as measured by TVL, volume, stablecoin market cap, RWA market cap, and fees generated.

Who You Are

• Encyclopedic DeFi knowledge: You can explain the value flow in any leading lending protocol (Aave, Morpho, Euler), walk through how a CDP, DEX, or yield-bearing stablecoin succeeds or fails, and articulate what each protocol category needs to get right to win.
• Opinionated on asset quality: You track interest-bearing assets, stablecoins, and RWAs closely. You know the prevailing market opinion on key assets and can independently assess new ones for strengths and pitfalls.
• Operationally rigorous: You can manage the full coordination chain of onboarding a new protocol or asset: oracles, liquidation infrastructure, DEX liquidity, curators, bridges. Nothing falls through the cracks.
• Sharp protocol instincts: Given any DeFi protocol's frontend or documentation, you can rapidly identify what's working, what's broken, and what to fix. Your advice is specific, not generic.
• Opinionated on incentive efficiency: You have a framework for evaluating which growth programs create flywheels versus which burn capital, and you can defend that framework with data and examples.
• Strong communicator: You deliver concise, high-signal analysis and recommendations. Builders and internal stakeholders trust your judgment because your reasoning is transparent and well-supported.

Nice to Haves

• Strong knowledge of trading and markets; able to think in expected value (EV) terms and apply that lens to DeFi strategy.
• Experience at a DeFi protocol in a growth, strategy, or protocol operations capacity.
• Familiarity with the Monad network's architecture, performance characteristics, and ecosystem.
• Comfort reading Solidity and understanding smart contract risk at a conceptual level.

Why Work with Us

• 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 slow and bandwidth-constrained. 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 an exceptional and highly-motivated 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 continue to shape our culture.

Key skills/competency

• DeFi Protocol Expertise
• Asset Quality Assessment
• Ecosystem Development
• Incentive Strategy
• Risk Management
• Liquidity Provision
• Market Analysis
• Cross-protocol Coordination
• Blockchain Technology (EVM, Layer 1)
• Strategic Advising