About Protocol Labs

Protocol Labs drives breakthroughs in computing to push humanity forward. Protocol Labs is a product-development lab, but behind the protocols and tools we build, behind the research and implementations, are passionate people, teammates, and community members. Most teams in the Protocol Labs Network are fully distributed and work remotely around the world. Engineers, researchers, and operators work in the open to improve the internet ?" humanity's most important technology ?" as we explore new advances at the intersection of many exciting fields (crypto, networks, distributed systems) and cultures (startups, research, open-source, distributed work).

What is Outercore? (brand doc reference)

In the famous words of Colin Evran and other leaders on the team...

Outercore is how web3 systems and ecosystems scale. The way we accomplish this is through startup and venture funding, developer relationships, events and hackathons, general advice, integrations and software, services, open source, and anything that helps developers use Filecoin to solve real problems. Outercore also has engineering teams with some of the original architects and engineers of the Filecoin Network, including the creator of the working implementation of Filecoin, Lotus.

Outercore seeks to see the long-term growth of the decentralized web. We try to advocate the proper use of PLN (Protocol Labs Network) technologies. This means we encourage businesses, companies, and individuals to make use of PL (Protocol Labs Network) technology by providing whatever we can.

Why is Outercore hiring a Chief Architect?

Large scale coordination of work requires a leader to be at the center of it all. This is to ensure the group is moving in the correct direction technically. This leader needs to be the conduit between the engineering teams, the general public, and the stakeholders of the Filecoin Network.

At a macro level, our future Chief Architect must be able to make the few but crucial strategic technical decisions that will steer the Filecoin Network in the right direction. This is missing in our group today.

The risk of not having this individual in our organization is unacceptable. Our teams currently run the risk of behaviors that typically occur when a group is isolated from the broader ecosystem. Examples of this include but are not limited to:

Engineers who don't know how to communicate their needs may never get the help they need to scale their teams and become bottlenecks for the development of Filecoin.
Cross team communication can become non-existent in the Protocol Labs Network.
Cross team communication between portfolio companies that Outercore has invested in can become non-existent.
Unintentional overlap of projects and wasted engineering effort.

These instances could lead to the lack of coordination capability to solve problems at scale.

To get ahead of these problems (and many more), we're hiring a Chief Architect for Outercore. The Chief Architect's involvement and ability to make useful decisions will improve overall engineering team health, net productivity, and increase the probability of real progress Filecoin needs more of.

What is the role of the Chief Architect on the Outercore team?

Outercore needs a leader who can direct the creation of formalized solutions to business problems and opportunities. This is very useful for those who wish to use Filecoin, IPFS, and other associated technologies in production.

Here are some high level topics the Outercore Chief Architect will immediately be involved in.

Storage provider tooling currently serves the most important cohort of users for the Filecoin Network. Without healthy and happy storage providers the network will not function.
Outercore has invested in a ton of companies that need guidance on how to use Filecoin, many of them are finding difficulty in using our stack.
Teams responsible for the development of our storage stack need to know what the most important things are to work on. They also need to know what is actually possible from a technical perspective so they don't waste cycles pursuing impossible tasks.
Supporting teams in the Protocol Labs Network would benefit from an omnipresent leader who can help everyone understand the best way to assist technical teams.
Everyone should know who they need to talk to for issues related to the development of the Filecoin Network.

What are the responsibilities of our new Chief Architect?

The Outercore Chief Architect will represent Outercore's end of the bargain for helping Filecoin achieve its highest potential in the world. They should be amongst the most convicted to achieve this vision.

Become a leader for the development and deployments of IPFS & Filecoin technology, products like Estuary, and new technologies within our ecosystem.
Rise to appropriate challenges both strategically and tactically as they come up. Developing a decentralized storage network of this size has never been done before and unpredictable things will happen.
Have an in-depth knowledge of Filecoin economics and how to develop economics with an ever changing global economy.
Help steer the organization towards improved market penetration and assist in the adoption of new tools.
Monitor social and technology trends and get ahead of the market while pushing IPFS & Filecoin on top of the market.
Identify opportunities and risks for Outercore.
Participate in management decisions.
Participate in staffing decisions.
Monitor budget and forecast costs.
Support technical recruitment, retention, acquisition, and capital allocation efforts of Outercore.
Be an outstanding communicator of the technology strategy we have to partners, management, investors and employees.
Research, outline, and direct the most effective solutions for our technology.
Architect new technologies for the companies that Outercore has invested in.
Handle government, FINRA, SEC, and state technology, security and privacy related audits.
Acquisitions and technology integrations. Be responsible for the due diligence, evaluation and reporting.
Develop technical business plans.

TLDR, what is the overview?

Set technical vision and strategy
Grow a killer engineering team
Develop an organization and people
Drive and ship great software
Communicate, communicate, communicate

Who is this person?

Believing in the value of decentralized storage networks and having a deep understanding of storage technologies would be the starting point.

They love Filecoin or they think they might!
Our next Chief Architect should enjoy doing things that haven't been done before.
Making great decisions and being productive should come naturally to our next Chief Architect.
Someone who is not afraid of inventing when necessary. Filecoin launched because a couple of ICs solved problems that no one thought could be solved. That same ability should be represented in our Chief Architect.
C-level experience is not required but knowing how to communicate at that level is very useful.
Experience with at least 3 companies. Our future Chief Architect should have been leading technical decisions at those companies that had impact on the markets, the technical personnel, and stakeholders of the technology.
A large network and engineering toolbelt for solving large problems in this domain. This person should have more solutions than questions.
This person should have evaluated many large technical solutions and achieved significant successes in the deployment of those solutions.
Someone who has worked on technology that has had high stakes who can understand how difficult the situation is for Storage Providers today.
Very comfortable when doing due diligence, audits, and evaluations of anything technical.

What's it like to work at Protocol Labs?

Protocol Labs' mission is to improve humanity's most important technology, the Internet. We build protocols, systems, and tools to improve how it works. Today, we are focused on how we store, locate, and move information. Our projects include IPFS, Filecoin, libp2p, and more.

As a distributed team, we hire anywhere in the world, and at various levels of experience (entry, senior, staff). We look for people with unique perspectives and diverse backgrounds.

We have a great benefits package, including parental leave, contributions to your retirement, competitive pay, and unlimited time off. For U.S.-based employees, we also provide platinum-level health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your family.

If you're passionate about the future of computing and a more democratized internet, we want to talk to you.

GDPR for Job Applicants and Candidates

When you apply to a job on this site, the personal data contained in your application will be collected by Protocol Labs, Inc. ("Protocol Labs"), which is located at 427 N Tatnall St #51207, Wilmington, Delaware 19801 and can be contacted by emailing legalrequests[at]protocol.ai. Protocol Labs' data protection team can be contacted via legalrequests[at]protocol.ai. Your personal data will be processed for the purposes of managing Protocol Labs' recruitment related activities, which include setting up and conducting interviews and tests for applicants, evaluating and assessing the results thereto, and as is otherwise needed in the recruitment and hiring processes. Such processing is legally permissible under Art. 6(1)(f) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation) as necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by Protocol Labs, which are the solicitation, evaluation, and selection of applicants for employment.

Your personal data will be shared with Greenhouse Software, Inc., a cloud services provider located in the United States of America and engaged by Protocol Labs to help manage its recruitment and hiring process on Protocol Labs' behalf. Accordingly, if you are located outside of the United States, your personal data will be transferred to the United States once you submit it through this site. Because the European Union Commission has determined that United States data privacy laws do not ensure an adequate level of protection for personal data collected from EU data subjects, the transfer will be subject to appropriate additional safeguards.

Your personal data will be retained by Protocol Labs as long as Protocol Labs determines it is necessary to evaluate your application for employment or to assist in the hiring process. Under the GDPR, you have the right to request access to your personal data, to request that your personal data be rectified or erased, and to request that processing of your personal data be restricted. You also have the right to data portability. In addition, you may lodge a complaint with an EU supervisory authority.

Summary
Company name: Protocol Labs
Remote job title: Chief Architect
Job tags: Due Diligence, Artificial Intelligence, Data Privacy