Technical Grants Evaluator

The Web3 Foundation nurtures and stewards technologies and applications for the decentralized web. We collaborate with cutting-edge developer teams, researchers and community leaders to strengthen and extend the uses of decentralized technologies; building the future of identity, privacy, financial markets, commerce, and more.

Our core project at the moment is Polkadot, a protocol designed to connect blockchains and allow them to interoperate, share security and more. In addition, we are supporting the development of a number of technologies that form the Web 3.0 tech stack - such as decentralized messaging, distributed storage and secret management.

Tasks

About the Role & Web3 Foundation Grants Program

We're seeking an enthusiastic decentralized technologies developer to help our grants team in evaluating software developed by grantees as well as the technical merit of applications for grant funding. The Web3 Foundation is committed to distributing a significant amount of funding for the development of open-source software that will contribute to the creation of the Web3 technologies stack. Once we have selected the projects to fund, we ensure they make progress on their milestones so that their software is developed according to their roadmap and can be used by the wider community.

The purpose of this role is to help the grants team to determine the legitimacy of grant applications as well as deliverables from grantees. This involves quickly understanding different technology stacks, the underlying requirements of the software, and performing functional testing to determine if the requirements have been met. Depending on the project, it may also involve review and inspection of codebases in a variety of languages and frameworks, such as Rust, and JavaScript. You will gain an understanding of Polkadot, Substrate and other related blockchain technologies.

Please see grants(dot)web3(dot)foundation for more background on the process in which you will be contributing to.

We are a lean team with a flat organization. This position is based in Zug, Switzerland. Remote work within Europe is possible.

Requirements

• Experience and proficiency in programming, e.g., in Rust, JavaScript, C, C++
• Knowledge and understanding of blockchain technologies and applications
• Technical ability to evaluate software implementation: setting up environments; compiling complex projects and their dependencies; reviewing and analyzing code
• Technical ability to test software: reading, writing and evaluating test plans; running and evaluating automated test suites; reviewing and testing functionality
• Ability to work in a variety of development environments and languages
• Approachable personality and clear communication style in English

A Plus

• Experience with systematic evaluation of technology projects
• Experience with Substrate
• Experience and proficiency in Docker
• Experience with Linux, and other Unix-based OS's
• The ability to evaluate the technical abilities of individuals and teams
• Demonstrated ability to manage relationships with many external parties

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and employee benefits
• Regular company retreats at unique locations located around Europe
• Opportunity to work in a multinational, high-performance team with diverse backgrounds (i.e. physics, computer science, machine-learning algorithm design, legal, financial products, management consulting, marketing & advertising, etc.)

To apply to this position, we ask you to answer a few questions in the application form, and to submit your CV and a cover letter, telling us a bit about yourself and your motivation to join us.

For more information about us, visit us on our websites web3(dot)foundation, polkadot(dot)network and github(dot)com/w3f