Engineering Manager, Cosmos Hub

Interchain is a 20-person company which works on core blockchain technology. We’re headquartered in Berlin, Germany, but our team stretches from New York, NY to Ulyanovsk, Russia. We keep in touch through Github, Slack, and Zoom, and meet in person periodically (when COVID permits). All in all, the software we develop secures billions of dollars in value across many different systems, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We strive to build world-class software while having plenty of laughs along the way.

Our engineering team stewards many of the core building blocks of the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem. The Cosmos Hub is one of the leading proof-of-stake blockchains and has been live in production for over two years — you can check out the code or take a look at a block explorer to learn more. We’re looking for an engineering manager to spearhead this effort and take the Cosmos Hub to the next level of performance and functionality.

As Cosmos Hub Engineering Manager, you’ll be responsible for leading engineering efforts on the Cosmos Hub, and for the daemon that powers the network: Gaia repository.

Activities include:

• Leading sustainable open-source stewardship for the Gaia Github repository, creating contribution guidelines, reviewing community code submissions, answering questions, and coordinating open-source collaborators along with the internal team
• Managing engineering efforts to implement new features for the Cosmos Hub such as cross-chain validation, staking derivatives, and proportional slashing, address potential performance bottlenecks, and improve internal software quality — depending on the nature of the features or improvements, this work may take place in either the Gaia repository or the Cosmos SDK repository
• Partnering with our Product Lead to build community consensus around a feature roadmap through both the formal Cosmos Hub governance system and informal discussions in collaboration with other ecosystem stakeholders
• Keeping an ever-vigilant eye on security considerations, ensuring that contributions (internal or external) receive adequate review, and coordinating with ecosystem stakeholders to handle security incidents when they occur
• Supporting individual engineers in their work and professional development, through regular one-on-ones and feedback sessions.
• In coordination with other Interchain team members and the development roadmap, determining resource requirements, writing job descriptions, and conducting hiring processes for engineers on the Cosmos Hub team

There are no hard requirements on previous experience, but ideally you have:

• Experience managing engineering teams, especially ones working on a cutting-edge, complex, real-world software product with security-critical safety considerations
• Expertise in systems design and an appropriate taste for simplicity, both in internal abstraction structure and in choice of third-party dependencies
• Top-notch communications skills, clear written prose, and a knack for working with a diverse range of contributors and users, and synthesizing different perspectives
• Experience in open-source development, stewardship, and/or maintenance, especially for a piece of software with substantial community involvement and a diverse contributor base
• A working familiarity with the Go programming language, consensus algorithms and distributed systems, TCP/IP networking, and blockchains or other distributed databases
• A high degree of personal responsibility and ownership: you’ll be responsible for setting deadlines and holding yourself and your team accountable to them
• A home base within our working timezones, probably from UTC - 5 (New York) to UTC + 3 (Moscow), and the ability to travel to Germany at least occasionally (post-COVID)

Not sure if you’re a fit? Please feel free to apply anyways, and we’ll take it from there.

Interchain GmbH believes that great people come from a broad range of backgrounds, and that the diversity of our team is one of our strengths. Discrimination has no place at Interchain GmbH and we do not discriminate on the bases of race, colour, gender, gender identity, national origin, age, religion, disability, or sexual orientation. We are committed to fighting bias and discrimination in our workplace and in our communities.