Backend Engineer, Core Engine

Merkl is the leading financial infrastructure for onchain money streaming. Finance is moving onchain: stablecoins, tokenized stocks and funds, onchain payments. Each of them comes with money that has to stream to someone: dividends to shareholders, interest to stablecoin holders, salaries to employees. Merkl is how that money gets there. Stablecoin issuers, fintechs, neobanks, tokenized funds, and DeFi protocols use us to calculate and send yield, dividends, rewards, and payouts.

Since July 2023, we have distributed $1.8B+ to 5M+ wallets across 60+ chains, for 1000+ companies including Coinbase, PayPal, Robinhood, Kraken, MetaMask, and Uniswap. We are independent, and the global leader in our category.

We're looking for a Backend Engineer to help build the next phase of Merkl.

Merkl is a small team of 20 people. If you join the team, you will not only learn with and from us but also be deeply involved in product design and the research we are conducting.

As a Backend Engineer on the core engine, you will design the system at the heart of Merkl: the engine that reads onchain activity, computes what every holder is owed, and pays it out. It has distributed $1.8B+ to date, and every new asset, protocol or chain we support makes it more general.

The work is mostly abstraction design. Each new client brings a new way of holding or earning value, and your job is to model it so the engine extends cleanly instead of special-casing it. You will also scale the indexing infrastructure that tracks positions and events across dozens of EVM and non-EVM chains, in real time.

Every line of this code handles real money, so we expect a high level of rigor: you care about correctness, test thoroughly, and think through edge cases before you ship. You'll work across a broad stack, mainly TypeScript and Go, and you'll enjoy picking up new languages and ecosystems as Merkl expands to new chains.

Specifically, your responsibilities will include:

• •Designing the engine's core abstractions, so each new asset, protocol or chain extends the system instead of special-casing it.
• •Owning new integrations end to end, from scoping with the client to production, as the way the engine meets new use cases.
• •Building and scaling Merkl's indexing infrastructure so it tracks positions and events reliably across every chain we support.
• •Continuously improving the engine's performance, scalability and reliability.
• •Designing onchain and offchain risk monitoring tools to keep the system correct and robust.
• •Shaping Merkl's technical roadmap and product evolution.

By joining the Merkl team, you will be part of one of the most innovative and fast-growing teams in onchain finance. We offer the opportunity to work with an ambitious team, shipping quickly and making an impact in the industry. For full-time positions, we provide:

• •A highly stimulating intellectual environment: You'll collaborate with some of the best researchers and engineers in onchain finance, on systems that move real money for Coinbase, Robinhood, and PayPal. Our stack is solid web2 engineering (TypeScript, Go, Postgres, Kubernetes) applied to financial infrastructure.
• •An AI-native way of working: AI coding agents, whichever one you prefer, and our own MCP servers are part of everyone's daily workflow. You get the best tools, and the time they save goes into understanding more of the system, not only shipping more code.
• •Growth and future opportunities: Be part of an independent, rapidly scaling company, working on the infrastructure that shapes the future of finance.
• •Competitive salary: We offer a competitive compensation package with flexible working hours, ensuring a healthy work-life balance.
• •Equipment stipend: We provide you with the tools and devices you need to optimize your work environment and fit your working style.
• •Team retreats: Every year, you'll have the chance to join the team on retreats to reflect on our journey, plan for the future, and bond while having fun in exciting locations.

You're a strong engineer who loves hard, well-defined problems. We're looking for someone who is:

• •Very strong at logic and abstraction: You see the general structure behind a set of special cases, and you enjoy modeling it cleanly.
• •A fast learner and problem-solver: You are intellectually curious, can quickly grasp new technologies and concepts, and have a knack for finding solutions to complex technical issues.
• •Curious with a deep technical mindset: You thrive on understanding how things work at a fundamental level, from a lending protocol to a tokenized fund. You enjoy digging into the details to solve complex problems and optimize systems.
• •Collaborative: You work well in a small, agile team where everyone's contributions are valued.
• •Ownership-focused: You take responsibility for your tasks and see projects through to completion.
• •Excited about the future of finance: You want to build the infrastructure that moves money onchain. No crypto background needed: you'll learn that side with us.

• •Strong foundations in algorithms, logic and abstraction, typically from an engineering or computer science background. Early-career profiles (0 to 3 years) are welcome.
• •Proficiency in TypeScript, or the will to pick it up fast. You'll also work in Go.
• •The ability to work autonomously, handle multiple priorities, and take full ownership of tasks from start to finish.
• •AI-powered efficiency: You already use AI coding tools as part of your daily workflow to move faster, automate repetitive tasks, and punch above your weight.

Bonus:

• •Experience with indexing solutions such as continuous streams of events and/or RPC push models.
• •A proven track record of solving complex mathematical problems.
• •Experience working with cloud infrastructures.
• •Familiarity with DeFi protocols, EVM or non-EVM chains.

Our hiring process is structured around 5 steps:

• →Screening [30 mins]: interview with a team member, deep dive into your background
• →Take-home technical case [max 2 hrs]: screening technical assessment for the position
• →Technical interview [1 hr]: discussion on the case, brainteasers, interview on job-specific skills
• →Cultural-fit interview [1 hr]: interview with potential future team members
• →Final interview [45 mins]: conversation with co-founders

If you have a question about the position, contact us directly at [email protected].