Protocol Engineer

About Daylight

Daylight is the decentralized energy company. We're building a protocol that converts distributed solar and storage systems into yield-bearing infrastructure. These assets are deployed behind the meter in American homes and businesses, generating electricity revenues that flow onchain as a single, liquid yield token. Our ambition is to build the economic engine for energy abundance-where capital fuels power, and power fuels everything.

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

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.