Senior Researcher, Mechanism Design - Category Labs

Category Labs (formerly known as Monad Labs) is a team of systems engineers and researchers on a mission to design and build at the frontier of decentralized technology. We strive to deliver significant improvements over existing blockchain solutions. After raising $225M in series A funding, led by Paradigm, we are growing our team.

We’re the team behind Monad, a high-performance, EVM-compatible Layer 1 whose public mainnet is now live. We write the core software that runs it: a parallel-execution EVM, a custom state database, and a BFT consensus client, all developed in the open.

The Role

We are looking for an exceptional Senior Researcher with significant academic and applied experience in economics, particularly in the context of permissionless blockchains. You will play a leading role in designing rules and mechanisms in Monad that keep the decentralized network running smoothly. You’ll be designing mechanisms that optimize for decentralization, economic security, spam prevention, compatibility with existing infrastructure, and ease of use.

You will work closely with our engineering team to design and test various mechanisms. You’ll draw on your extensive knowledge and opinions on mechanisms in existing blockchains to evaluate options for Monad’s design that optimize its security, decentralization, and performance. You’ll work on a variety of areas, such as transaction ordering, staking, and consensus. Most importantly, your work will help our team avoid security threats and the threat of centralization.

Your work will be vital to Monad’s success and will allow Monad to scale safely to hundreds of millions of users.

What you’ll be doing

• You’ll design and evaluate mechanisms that optimize for economic security, decentralization, performance, compatibility with existing infrastructure, and ease of use. A few example areas include transaction ordering (PGA vs flashbots/PBS); staking; liquid staking; spam prevention; on-chain randomness; light clients.
• You’ll evaluate potential attack vectors and evaluate ways to mitigate the threat of attacks.
• You’ll advise the team on technical merits of other systems that are potential partners, such as bridges and DeFi protocols.
• You’ll stay up to date on mechanism design in other blockchains and develop opinions on various practices
• You’ll collaborate with our engineering team to design and test new mechanism options.
• You’ll write about your findings for both internal and public audiences.

Who You Are

Priorexperience/skills:

• Excellent knowledge of mechanisms and policies in existing blockchains, with strong opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of existing mechanisms. Example areas we’d expect you to have good knowledge of:
  • Transaction ordering/MEV (both mechanically how MEV “works” in Ethereum, including architectural changes post-Merge, and its consequences, e.g. to decentralization)
  • Staking and economic security (delegation economics; slashing conditions; stake pools)
  • Consensus mechanisms (pBFT, tendermint, Gasper)
  • Spam prevention
  • Trustlessness and decentralization (light clients; merkle proofs; security guarantees of various L1s and rollups)
• Excellent knowledge of major DeFi primitives (AMMs, bridges, oracles, etc)
• Excellent technical communication skills

Required personal attributes:

• Extreme technical curiosity
• Attention to detail
• Creativity
• Resourcefulness and independence
• Clarity of thought
• Enthusiasm about learning and teaching
• Enthusiasm for Monad’s mission of enabling far more decentralized computation

Nice to have:

• Previous experience at a L1 or L2 blockchain protocol
• Experience with applied cryptography
• Experience with distributed systems
• Experience with game theory
• Ability to code, e.g. for implementing simulations

Why Work with Us

• Challenging problems: You’ll work on extremely challenging problems with massive impact. See our Blogs and Publications & Talks for a flavor of the problems we are solving in the real world.
• Huge opportunity: The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) standard is ubiquitous, but existing EVM-compatible chains are very slow. Monad’s core innovations offer developers the best of both worlds (portability and performance) and are a game-changer for mass user adoption in crypto.
• The right team: You’ll be part of a small, exceptional team (engineers and researchers make up 90% of the team).
• Open by default: Our core software is public on GitHub. You’ll build in the open, and your work ships where the whole ecosystem can see it.
• Culture: We’re a lean team working together to achieve very ambitious goals. We are united in our culture of collaboration, low ego, and high-quality output. As an early member of our team, you’ll help to shape our culture.
• Compensation: You’ll receive a competitive salary and equity package.
• Resources and growth: We’re well-capitalized, with backing from leading venture funds like Paradigm, Electric Capital, Greenoaks, Dragonfly, and Coinbase Ventures. We keep a lean team, and this is a rare opportunity to join. You’ll learn a lot and grow as our company scales.

How We Use AI

We’re an AI-native team, and we expect engineers to use coding agents and keep up as the tooling evolves. A few things we believe:

• AI is leverage, not a crutch. Review what it generates with the same scrutiny you’d give a teammate’s PR, and own every line you ship.
• Judgment is what matters, not how long you typed by hand. We won’t ask for “N years of [tool].” The stack turns over every few months, so what matters is that you pick up new tools fast and know where and when they apply.

Salary and Benefits

The base salary range for this role is $180,000 – $250,000. This reflects the minimum and maximum range across US locations. It does not include benefits, token, or equity incentives. The final offer may vary based on factors such as relevant skills, experience, domain expertise, and work location. If you are based outside of the US, we have geographic considerations that may impact your final compensation.

Benefits for all Full-Time Employees:

• Private health insurance options
• Flexible paid time off
• Monthly wellness reimbursement
• Paid parental leave

Benefits for US employees:

• World-class benefits package with 100% paid medical, dental, and vision insurance including 75% coverage for dependents and HSA + FSA options
• 401(k) with company match
• Lunch and dinner stipend (in-office NYC)

Benefits for employees hired through an EOR (outside of the US) will be based on EOR offerings and country-specific requirements.

Category Labs is an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) employer and welcomes all qualified applicants. Applicants will receive fair and impartial consideration without regard to race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic data, or other legally protected status.