Staff Backend Engineer

About us Aave Labs began with a simple question: how do we make financial services like borrowing, saving, and earning more accessible globally? We built the Aave Protocol, now the world’s largest and most trusted onchain lending market, connecting decentralized finance with individuals, traditional finance, and fintech. Today, we build trusted, high-quality products that expand access to lending, credit, and savings globally Our culture We build trusted products that help people access and discover economic opportunities. We hold a high bar for quality and craftsmanship. No detail is too small. Trust depends on it. We’re a global team building products people can actually use, turning complex technology into something simple and reliable. We stay aligned, move quickly, and think long term, while keeping teams lean and focused on impact. About the role We're hiring a Staff Backend Engineer to work with a small and highly technical team building the infrastructure behind new DeFi protocols and vault products at Aave Labs. The role focuses on the systems between onchain protocols and the applications built around them. This includes vault management and curation systems, constraint-based allocation solvers, secure protocol infrastructure, high-throughput blockchain indexing, and performant, well-documented APIs. You'll work on systems where correctness, reliability, performance, and security directly affect user funds and protocol integrity. The role has significant ownership and autonomy across offchain infrastructure and components that interact closely with smart contracts and onchain state. You will also work closely with Quant Engineers. Quant owns the financial models, assumptions, validation, and calibration. Backend owns the production systems, data pipelines, and services that run those models. Smart contract engineers own their onchain integration and enforcement. How you can make an impact: Design, build, and operate backend infrastructure for new DeFi protocols and vault productsBuild vault management, curation, and constraint-based allocation systemsBuild high-throughput blockchain indexers and data-ingestion pipelinesDesign performant, stable, and well-documented APIs for applications and internal systemsWork with Quant Engineers to turn reviewed models into reliable production servicesWork closely with smart contract engineers on systems that consume onchain state and submit onchain transactionsTake technical ownership of projects and help maintain a high engineering standard across the team Let's connect if you have: 5-8+ years of backend engineering experience, including ownership of production systemsStrong experience with Rust. Experience with C++, Go, Zig, or another systems language can substituteExperience building high-performance, data-intensive, or event-driven backend systemsStrong PostgreSQL knowledgeExperience with blockchain, DeFi, financial infrastructure, or another environment involving real capitalThe ability to work independently in a high-autonomy environmentStrong judgment around correctness, reliability, and security Nice to haves: Experience with cross-chain blockchain indexing or large-scale data ingestionExperience designing constraint, optimization, solver, or allocation systemsExperience reading smart contracts and integrating with EVM-based protocolsExperience operating financial systems where correctness and reliability affect capitalHands-on experience with Kafka and ClickHouse or similar analytical databases Haven’t quite met all the criteria? Let’s not miss out on the chance to speak. Whilst you might not meet every single requirement, you might bring other, more exciting skills to the companies! Equal opportunities statement: Aave Labs celebrates diversity and views each and every team member as a separate individual with their own unique identity. No matter your race, religion, gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation or even the wallet you use, we welcome you at Aave Labs. As an equal opportunities employer, we take accountability and believe in everyone's potential to build, create and inspire changes. With a mission to build a diverse workforce, we are proud to foster a working environment in which everyone can feel safe and valued for who they are.