VP of Engineering

VP of Engineering

At Tristero, we're building crypto's first performant decentralized dark pool. Today, if you're trading on-chain, you're broadcasting your trades to the world before they happen. Sophisticated actors systematically front-run all trades (MEV, stat arb), resulting in most high value trading activity remaining within the confines of centralized exchanges which share all of the downsides of the system crypto was meant to replace. We're looking for a VP of Engineering to join our lean team of just 8 full-time employees. You would work directly with our cofounders and shape our roadmap, product architecture, and engineering team. Ideally, you're eager to get your hands dirty as an IC as well.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture & System Design

• Spearhead the design and development of decentralized exchange features, including:
• On-chain order execution and settlement mechanisms.
• Scalable off-chain infrastructure for indexing, data aggregation, and API delivery.
• Wallet/key management integrations for seamless UX.
• Architect cross-chain routing across EVM, Solana, Tron, and Bitcoin, orchestrating transactions with varying confirmation times and gas models.
• Implement Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) for seamless USDC transfers with robust monitoring and failure handling.
• Lead real-time price discovery with sub-100ms latency from multiple liquidity sources (e.g., Jupiter, OpenOcean, native DEXs).
• Design type-safe address validation systems for diverse chain formats.
• Ensure the reliability, security, and efficiency of smart contracts and off-chain systems.

High-Performance Microservices & Frontend Architecture

• Scale our Python FastAPI microservice architecture
• Design event-driven order lifecycle management with WebSocket connections, status tracking, and recovery.
• Build dynamic gas estimation services across EVM, Solana, Tron.
• Develop liquidity monitoring with real-time balance tracking, rate limiting, and circuit breakers.
• Architect a Next.JS frontend with:
• High-performance trading interfaces to the standard of e.g. Binance, Hyperliquid, etc.
• Multi-wallet support (WalletConnect v2, Phantom, MetaMask, hardware wallets).
• Real-time trading UI with maximally graceful and observable error handling and state management.
• Secure embedded widget platform with postMessage communication and dynamic theming.

Database, State Management, and Reliability

• Implement event sourcing for immutable trading logs.
• Build multi-level, high-access caching strategies with Redis.
• Integrate Supabase for real-time subscriptions and authentication.

Blockchain Protocol Mastery

• Implement pre-flight transaction simulation with revert reason parsing and slippage protection.
• Build EIP-712, Solana, and Tron signing workflows with nonce management.
• Coordinate bridge protocol integrations for cross-chain asset transfers.

Performance, Security, and DevOps

• Optimize async Python concurrency and React rendering.
• Implement API rate limiting with backoff and quota management.
• Deploy and manage services on GCP (Cloud Run, blue-green deployments).
• Establish observability with metrics, logging, and alerting.
• Enforce security best practices including key management, secret rotation, and secure Docker builds.

Leadership & Process

• Mentor engineers, enforce code quality and testing standards.
• Drive architectural reviews and technology selection.
• Implement incident response protocols, on-call rotations, and post-mortems.
• Improve engineering processes including CI/CD pipelines, code review workflows, and release management.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in software engineering roles, with a proven track record of leadership and technical expertise.
• Experience in senior roles at small startups, particularly during growth phases and organizational scaling.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams and influence decision making.
• Passion for blockchain technology (Crypto native experience is a plus).

Nice-to-Have

• Experience contributing to or maintaining open-source blockchain projects.
• Knowledge of cryptographic concepts, zero-knowledge proofs, or advanced security protocols.
• Prior experience shipping DeFi products.

We've got unlimited PTO, a full suite of healthcare options, and some swag with your name on it. We foster a high-trust, high-autonomy culture. If you're looking for a no-nonsense team to build groundbreaking financial products with—Tristero may be the place for you.

We're looking forward to hearing from you! If you do not have any direct crypto experience, please make sure to include a brief cover letter that explains why you think you can onboard to a new domain smoothly. This can be very short - we do read these.