ZODL - Principal Engineer, R&D

• Polyglot builder. You pick up languages and frameworks as needed rather than being anchored to one stack. You've shipped code in at least three languages in a professional context • Strong product intuition. You can articulate why something should be built, not just how. You've originated product ideas that shipped, not just executed on someone else's vision • Excellent written communication. This is a remote, async-first team. Your prototypes need documentation. Your recommendations need to be legible to both technical and non-technical stakeholders • Comfort operating independently with high ambiguity. You won't have a detailed roadmap handed to you. You'll be expected to define your own priorities and make a case for them • Preferred • Preferred • Experience with privacy-preserving technologies (zero-knowledge proofs, shielded transactions, viewing keys, threshold signatures/FROST) • Familiarity with the Zcash ecosystem or adjacent privacy-focused protocols • Experience with cross-chain interoperability (bridges, intents-based architectures, atomic swaps) • Background in consumer wallet or payments UX • Experience with web-based wallet architectures (browser extensions, progressive web apps, embedded wallets) • Experience evaluating and integrating third-party SDKs and partner technologies • Prior experience at an early-stage startup where you wore multiple hats • How This Role Fits the Org • You report directly to the CEO. You are a peer to the Head of Partnerships and the Head of Engineering, not a report to either. Your primary collaborators are: • CEO / Head of Product: Sets product strategy and direction. You work closely with them to align R&D priorities and get sign-off on what moves forward. • CEO / Head of Product: • Head of Partnerships: Surfaces partner capabilities, ecosystem opportunities, and market signals. You evaluate technical fit and viability and prototype integrations. • Head of Partnerships: • Head of Engineering: Manages the shipping roadmap across core and mobile. Your validated prototypes and specs enter the development pipeline through them. • Head of Engineering: • Head of Protocol R&D: Owns protocol-level research and specification work. You validate architectural feasibility with them. They are the authority on what's achievable at the protocol layer. • Head of Protocol R&D: • Mobile Engineering: Consulted on R&D activities to ensure alignment with platform constraints and implementation realities. • Mobile Engineering: • You are not in the critical path for shipping. Your job is to stay ahead of the roadmap, exploring what's next while the rest of the team ships what's now. You can pull in core and mobile engineers to collaborate when their schedules allow, but you should never be blocked waiting for them. • What We're Not Looking For • Someone who needs a large team or significant budget to be effective. This is a solo operator role for now. • A pure researcher who publishes but doesn't ship code. • A generalist PM who coordinates but doesn't build. • Someone whose crypto experience is limited to trading or tokenomics. We need protocol-level depth.