Mechanism Design Engineer

About CoW Protocol 

CoW Protocol is on a mission to create the fairest and most efficient venue for exchanging assets on all EVM-compatible chains. Since launching a year ago, we have passed $19bn (yes, billion) in trade volume, and become the 2nd most popular DEX Aggregator on the market -- still aiming for #1. If you are a high-performing team player who wants to work on some of the most important problems in Ethereum (MEV protection, batch auctions, and more), we want to talk to you! Location: Onsite or remote Position: Full-time contractor  

About the role

We are looking for an enthusiastic, self-motivated Mechanism Design Engineer to help us build the next generation of decentralized trading protocols. As a dedicated mechanism designer, you will gain ownership of the CoW Protocol solver competition, a core component of the protocol that provides a fully decentralized price-finding and trading mechanism based on frequent batch auctions among competing agents, known as solvers. That competes to provide the best possible trading paths. You will work on challenging theoretical and practical aspects of the solver competition, its design, and implementation, and ensure that sound economic principles are followed for the competition to reach the desired equilibria. You will also ensure that we deliver reliable and performant features to improve the core CoW protocol and influence the creation, design, and execution of future features and products.

What will you do

• Improve solver competition rules to enable a decentralized competition of solvers, taking into account both theoretical and practical aspects of their implementation
• Propose practical solutions to ensure that such rules are enforced
• Monitor the solver competition and work closely with solvers to ensure the competition has a high participation rate with high-quality solvers
• Publish scientific and expository articles around the solver competition, batch auctions and MEV
• Give thoughtful and in-depth reviews of your colleagues’ contributions to the rules of the solver competition

Who you are

• You have excellent knowledge of mechanism design, game theory, auction theory, and general finance fundamentals
• You have a strong background in Mathematics and Computer Science fundamentals
• You are proactive in giving directions for improving existing models, anticipating issues, and refactoring the codebase
• You are a team player, a strong communicator, and love to share your knowledge with others
• You collaborate effectively with a remote-first team on a complex problem

It is a plus if you bring:

• Understanding of the Ethereum blockchain and ecosystem
• Experience with architecting complex software systems
• Basic knowledge of statistics and/or optimization
• Programming experience in Python, C++ or Rust

What we can offer you

• Flexible work environment: join one of our hubs in Berlin or Lisbon or work remotely with the option of joining a local coworking space
• Regular trips to reunite with the rest of the team
• High level of autonomy, independency, and ownership
• Conference budget to keep up to date with the developments of the ecosystem
• Learning budget to support your higher ambitions
• Company tokens 
• Work alongside the biggest projects and names of the space
• Impact: you are joining a startup where you can make a huge difference. Your work matters!
• But most importantly - grow with us! We're growing rapidly, the industry is expanding fast, and we have a lot to do****

Culture

Life in CoW Protocol is an amazing journey, we pride ourselves on the way we work together. We like autonomy, we think big, and have a growth mindset. We value initiatives and ownership. Our work is open source, designed code is publicly accessible - anyone can see, modify, and distribute the code as they see fit. Research shows that while men apply to jobs when they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, women and other folks tend to only apply when they check every box. If you think you have what it takes, but don't necessarily meet every single point on the job description, please still get in touch. We would love to hear from you. This is a brand-new position. Don't miss your chance! We look forward to your application!