Back to jobs
New

Protocol Engineer

New York, NY

About Daylight

Daylight is the decentralized energy company. We’re creating the infrastructure that enables homes to generate, store, and share energy with their neighbors—transforming passive consumers into active participants in a smarter, more sustainable grid.

Backed by a16z, Framework Ventures, and other leading investors, we’re bringing together top minds in energy and crypto to build a new kind of energy network—one that is transparent, decentralized, and designed for the energy transition. Learn more at www.godaylight.com.

 

The Role

As a Protocol Engineer at Daylight, you’ll lead the development of our core smart contracts and decentralized backend systems that underpin our onchain energy network. Our protocol interacts with energy hardware in the real world and tokenizes the value of flexible energy capacity into crypto-native incentives—bridging digital and physical infrastructure through verifiable smart contracts, oracles, and data integrations.

You should bring deep experience in Solidity and DeFi architectures (especially stablecoins, lending, or reward mechanisms), and be comfortable deploying cross-chain smart contracts using modern interoperability protocols like LayerZero or Wormhole. You should also be confident designing systems that ingest and act on offchain data in a trust-minimized way—whether through Chainlink, Chronicle, or custom oracle networks.

We’re a small team working quickly, so you should be comfortable jumping into backend tasks when needed—whether supporting our Django APIs or refining the interface between our offchain services and smart contract layer.

This is a high-impact, high-ownership role. You'll work directly with the founding team, shaping the cryptoeconomic and technical foundation of Daylight's protocol.

This role is in-person in our New York City office.

 

Responsibilities

  • Protocol Development
    • Design and implement Solidity smart contracts that underpin Daylight’s decentralized energy markets
    • Lead architecture decisions for our EVM-based systems across mainnet and L2s
    • Manage crosschain deployments and integrations using LayerZero, Wormhole, or similar technologies
    • Develop core logic for staking, token issuance, energy capacity verification, and rewards
  •  Data Integration & Oracles
    • Architect secure offchain data flows to feed real-world energy data into onchain systems
    • Work with oracles and custom data infrastructure to bridge between energy hardware, APIs, and contracts
    • Design and maintain trust assumptions, verification mechanisms, and upgrade paths
  • Backend Engineering
    • Support Daylight’s core backend team as needed with Python/Django development
    • Help design and maintain APIs that interact with contracts and power our frontend applications
    • Participate in DevOps, testing, and deployment of protocol-related services
  • Security & Auditing
    • Lead internal security reviews and coordinate third-party audits of smart contracts
    • Stay up-to-date on known exploits and best practices in DeFi and crosschain architecture
  • Product Strategy & R&D
    • Contribute to protocol incentive design, economic modeling, and simulations
    • Evaluate new technologies, frameworks, and cryptoeconomic primitives to inform

 

What we’re looking for

| Must Haves

  • 3+ years of experience developing and deploying Solidity smart contracts in production
  • Deep familiarity with DeFi protocols—especially stablecoins, lending markets, staking, or yield systems
  • Experience with crosschain development (e.g., LayerZero, Wormhole, Axelar)
  • Proven experience integrating offchain data via oracles (Chainlink, Chronicle, custom feeds)
  • Understanding of EVM security, auditing practices, and gas optimization
  • Comfortable writing and reviewing Python code and supporting traditional backend engineering tasks
  • Passion for clean energy, decentralization, and building systems with real-world impact
  • Based in NYC, excited to collaborate in-office

| Nice to Haves

  • Experience building L2-native or modular appchains (OP Stack, Polygon CDK, etc.)
  • Familiarity with protocol simulations (e.g., Python-based Monte Carlo models or token economic tools)
  • Previous experience contributing to open-source protocols
  • Understanding of DERs, energy hardware, or grid operations
  • Experience working in early-stage startups or founding teams

 

What we offer

  • Competitive salary and equity package
  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance
  • Monthly wellness and Wellhub stipend
  • Opportunity to shape a category-defining protocol from the ground up
  • Work in-person with a deeply motivated team in New York City

Daylight values diversity and welcomes applications from all qualified candidates. We're building technology that serves everyone, and we believe diverse perspectives make our team and our product stronger.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV*

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Cover Letter

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Education

Select...
Select...
Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Daylight’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.