Backend Engineer - Unichain

About Uniswap Labs and Unichain

Uniswap Labs is a core contributor to the Uniswap Protocol, the world’s largest DEX, facilitating over $4 trillion in volume across 17 chains. The company develops essential products like the Uniswap Web App, Wallet, and Trading API, enabling millions to access the protocol. Uniswap Labs is also the primary technical provider for Unichain, a pioneering DeFi-native Ethereum Layer 2 solution designed to be the ultimate home for cross-chain liquidity.

Unichain, our bespoke L2 chain, is purpose-built for liquidity and decentralized finance. We are actively expanding our team to tackle significant infrastructure challenges, focusing on enhancing performance, broadening capabilities, and guaranteeing unwavering reliability as we scale.

About the Backend Engineer - Unichain Role

We are seeking a Backend Engineer - Unichain who excels in ambiguous environments and is eager to take full ownership of impactful projects from inception to completion. You will collaborate with a highly skilled team, addressing complex problems within blockchain infrastructure and distributed systems. This position is based at our SoHo, NYC headquarters, with options for partial or full remote work arrangements.

What You'll Do

• Own projects end-to-end: scope requirements, design systems, implement solutions, and monitor them in production.
• Write clean, well-tested Rust code and elevate code quality through meticulous reviews.
• Build and maintain robust infrastructure to ensure Unichain's 24/7 reliability, performance, and availability.
• Proactively identify system vulnerabilities and propose practical, forward-thinking solutions.
• Participate in on-call rotations to guarantee chain stability and facilitate rapid incident response.
• Work cross-functionally to transform intricate, unclear problems into precise technical plans.

What You'll Bring

• 5+ years of extensive backend engineering experience with a proven track record of deploying production systems.
• Demonstrated experience in building and operating distributed systems or blockchain infrastructure.
• Comfort with ambiguity: ability to decompose complex problems and deliver tangible results.
• Solid understanding of cloud architectures, system design principles, and debugging at scale.
• Experience in building systems from scratch (0→1) and iteratively improving them over time.
• Genuine interest in Web3 and a commitment to staying current with industry best practices.

Nice to Haves

• Proficiency in Rust.
• Hands-on experience with the OP Stack or other Optimism-based rollups.
• Familiarity with Reth or Kona – a significant advantage.
• Exposure to zero-knowledge (ZK) systems or cryptographic primitives.
• Experience with observability tools and time-series monitoring.
• Working knowledge of Go or TypeScript.
• AWS or equivalent cloud platform experience.
• Love for unicorns :)

Compensation and Benefits

The minimum full-time salary for this role ranges from $210,000 to $232,000, in accordance with New York City's Pay Transparency Law. Full-time employees at Uniswap Labs are also eligible for additional compensation elements, including tokens, and a comprehensive benefits package. Benefits include company-paid medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents, wellness offerings such as a partnership with Equinox Fitness Clubs, a 401(k) with a 4% employer contribution, an annual $1,500 education stipend, unlimited and encouraged time off, up to 16 weeks of paid parental leave, a home office setup stipend for remote employees, and daily lunches at the NY headquarters (all benefits are subject to applicable taxes and based on eligibility).

Key skills/competency

• Backend Engineering
• Distributed Systems
• Blockchain Infrastructure
• Rust Programming
• Cloud Architectures
• System Design
• Web3 Development
• DeFi Protocols
• On-call Support
• Incident Response