Distributed Systems Researcher

Flashbots • Remote

Last updated 3 days ago

Flashbots

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Dragonfly

Paradigm

Variant

VC-Funded

Web3

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Job description

Location

Remote

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

Remote

Department

Research

About us

At Flashbots, we're building the foundations of the future Internet and financial system. As an R&D organization, we focus on MEV through our dual engines of open research and breakthrough product development – like mev-geth, Flashbots Protect, MEV-Boost, MEV-Share, Flashblocks, and BuilderNet. Our vibe is accelerationist, exceptional, kind, and independent. We are explorers, innovators, builders, and thinkers. We thrive on action, curiosity, and impact - driving the future in an iterative way while keeping an eye towards the long term version we want to see in the world.

We are looking for a researcher to help us explore open problems in distributed systems and consensus at the heart of Ethereum and MEV. You will translate ideas from academic literature into practical mechanisms, formal models, and prototype simulations. You will be working at the boundary between distributed systems, cryptography, and real-world Ethereum constraints.

Responsibilities

Read, formalise, and prototype consensus mechanisms relevant to Ethereum L1 and L2.
Model incentive structures and attack surfaces under realistic MEV and latency conditions.
Collaborate with colleagues working on TEEs, relays, and PBS variants to analyse threat models and improve protocol design.
Explore questions such as:
- How do multiple concurrent proposers (MCP) affect proposer fairness under MEV regimes?
- What is the role of relays in a geo-decentralised ePBS-Ethereum?
- Can inclusion lists or geographic decentralisation improve validator diversity?
- What guarantees can TEEs provide as interactive verifiers in distributed protocols?
- How do you model distributed private block building?

Topics You Might Work On

Consensus and Incentives

Multiple Concurrent Proposers (MCP)
Relay-free PBS
Inclusion lists
Geographic decentralisation

Distributed Systems Architecture

Distributed orderpool networks and ingress hardening
L2 blockspace scheduling and inclusion guarantees
Anonymous communication channels You can also visit our frequently updated Research Problems Database for a more in depth perspective of the challenges we are actively trying to solve.

You might come from one of two paths:

Academic-leaning
- PhD or equivalent experience in distributed systems, cryptography, mathematics, or related areas. You enjoy formal reasoning, but you want to see your ideas tested in practice. You embrace thought-provoking ideas that can change a field's direction, and are curious about formalising the design of MEV-aware distributed systems.
Empirical-leaning
- self-taught or hands-on practitioner: you tinker, simulate, and share your findings in long-form posts on ethresear.ch or your own platform, and your writings often ship with a prototype or notebook analysing the problem under study. We welcome both profiles as long as you are curious, rigorous, and collaborative.

What to Expect in the Role

Work on open-ended research problems that often have no canonical answers.
Maintain high autonomy and ownership over your research
Collaborate with engineers, cryptographers, mechanism designers, data scientists.
Contribute to both internal research notes and public-facing technical explainers.
Operate in a fully remote, asynchronous setup - clear written communication is essential.
Participate in company onsites and relevant ecosystem conferences (SBC, ETHCC, FC...).

Strong foundation in distributed systems, consensus, or network protocols.
Ability to formalise and reason about safety, liveness, and incentive compatibility.
Familiarity with Ethereum's internals: Proof of Stake's consensus algorithm, proposer-builder separation, Consensus Layer (CL) clients, gossip protocol
Experience writing or reading academic-grade research reports and small prototypes (Python, Rust, Go).
Clarity in technical writing: you can distill dense ideas into precise, legible outputs that will be consumed internally or externally.
Curiosity and independence: you often find yourself nerdsniped by deep technical puzzles.

Experience with Trusted Execution Environments (Intel TDX, AMD SEV) and remote attestation.
Background in cryptographic or privacy-preserving systems (MPC, FHE, ZK).
Experience with MEV, relays, or PBS architectures.
Deep understanding of other large-scale distributed systems (IPFS, ...)
Contributions to ethresear.ch, EIPs, open-source distributed systems projects for an empirical-leaning profile, or publications at FC, SBC, or similar for an academic-leaning profile.

Significantly above market rate equity compensation package
Unlimited PTO with a high level of freedom and autonomy for your work
Attractive health coverage package for US employees
$3000 Yearly budget for your individual learning and development goals
Work alongside the brightest minds in the crypto space
Help save the world by ensuring crypto remains decentralized, permissionless and censorship-resistant
Remote working, while we have a preference for EU/US time zones, you can work from anywhere in the world
Paid travel - 2 x team on-site in different parts of the world per year plus periodic travel to events

At Flashbots, we are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age, or disability status.