Staff Software Engineer, Protocol

What We're Building

Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) are critical to the future of blockchain scaling, interoperability, and privacy, but are too complex for most developers today. Succinct’s mission is to make ZKPs simple and accessible for all builders.

Our core product is SP1, a breakthrough zkVM (zero-knowledge virtual machine) that enables developers to generate ZK proofs from normal code (like Rust) with state-of-the-art performance.

To support SP1, we’ve built the Succinct Prover Network -- a protocol on Ethereum that coordinates a decentralized network of provers for universal ZK proof generation. This lets developers outsource proving to a global, competitive marketplace of provers.

Our infrastructure is already in production with many of the best teams in crypto:

• Polygon is using SP1 to build AggLayer and Katana

• Celestia and Avail use our network to secure Ethereum bridges

• Mantle ($2B TVL) is using it to become the world’s largest ZK Layer 2

• And many more, including Celo, Interchain (IBC V2), Hibachi, Lido, Galxe, Taiko, Sovereign, and others

zkVMs are now a key part of Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, and Succinct is at the forefront -- delivering real-world impact, meaningful revenue, and some of the most technically ambitious work in ZK.

We’ve raised $55M across Seed and Series A from Paradigm, and we're a small, high-performing team focused on building deeply technical products with real-world adoption.

The Role

We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer to lead the design, optimization, and evolution of the Succinct Prover Network and distributed proving infrastructure for SP1.

In this role, you will:

• Lead protocol design work, including rewriting core systems from scratch and driving key protocol upgrades

• Architect, implement, and maintain a highly available, scalable distributed system for proof generation

• Define and implement standards and processes for stability, observability, and operational excellence for our distributed proving cluster

If you’re passionate about low-level systems, decentralized protocols, and pushing the boundaries of performance and reliability in blockchain infrastructure, this is an opportunity to shape a core part of Succinct’s mission.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of backend, systems, or infrastructure engineering experience

• Proven experience designing and scaling core protocol or distributed systems

• Strong background in performance engineering — profiling, optimizing, and re-architecting systems for speed and efficiency

• Experience maintaining highly available, autoscaling backend services in production

• Expertise with container-based orchestration systems (e.g., Kubernetes) and autoscaling

• Experience implementing and operating a standard monitoring and observability stack

• Systems programming experience in Rust, Go, or similar languages

• Ownership mindset with the ability to lead large, complex projects from design through delivery

• Strong communication and collaboration skills

Nice to have

• Experience with blockchain consensus, networking, or state management

• Prior work on Layer 1 or Layer 2 protocols

• Familiarity with AWS and high-throughput distributed infrastructure

• Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams, including product and frontend engineers

Location

This role is remote-friendly with a preference for timezones with some overlap with PST (San Francisco). Our team is primarily based in San Francisco and works together in-person in an office. However, this particular role and team is remote-friendly and offers flexibility on location.

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary and equity package

• Full health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents

• Daily lunch and dinner at the office

• Travel to industry events and conferences (company-paid)