About Ritual
Ritual is building a sovereign, execution layer for AI, with our private testnet already live and running. The Ritual chain is the first blockchain custom-built to support AI-native operations, designed from the ground up to enable a new class of applications at the intersection of crypto and AI. Our first product, Infernet, is pioneering new ground as the first solution to enable developers to access AI models both on-chain via smart contracts and off-chain, demonstrating our commitment to bridging these transformative technologies.
About the role
We are looking for an experienced smart contract engineer to join our team to help build and maintain our open-source smart contract libraries and frameworks. Working closely with product, engineering, and research, you will play a critical role in architecting and implementing the core protocol, useful libraries and tooling, and adjacent prototypes.
We are a lean and agile organization. The ideal candidate thrives in autonomous environments, has a mastery of smart-contract engineering, and enjoys building new products from scratch.
- Building and maintaining core smart contract frameworks and libraries
- Managing smart-contract release lifecycles; from architecting to audit to post-release
- Spearheading research into novel smart contract functionality beyond the EVM
- Collaborating with a cross-functional team of engineers, designers, researchers, product managers, and operations teammates to create best-in-class products
Candidate Profile & Mindset
- General mastery of software engineering principles
- Strong proficiency in Solidity and at least one other non-smart-contract language
- Deep understanding of the EVM and differences across L1/L2/L3 environments
- Familiarity with network node architectures (geth, reth, op-stack, orbit, etc.)
- Experience participating in past smart contract code audits (maintainer or auditor)
- Desire to dive in at the lowest level; experience to know when not to
- Strong communication and collaboration abilities; emphasis on written communication
Extras
- Experience with alternative, non-EVM-based execution environments
- Past experience in contributing to or maintaining open-source projects
Perks & Compensation
- Join a passionate group of engineers, researchers, and operators on a mission to build the next generation of AI infrastructure
- Highly competitive compensation package, including annual discretionary bonus & optimized tax structure compared to the vast majority of web3 startups
- Top 1% of benefits across the web3 startup space
- 100% of premiums covered on highest quality healthcare
- Aggressive company 401k match
- Fully remote and/or hybrid, up to you!
- Participate in virtual and in-person events
- Much much more!
About Ritual
Ritual, founded in 2023 by Niraj Pant and Akilesh Potti in New York, builds a decentralized AI execution layer that lets smart contracts and apps call models on-chain. Its flagship network, Ritual Chain and Infernet, connects nodes that run inference with cryptographic verifiability, enabling AI-native DeFi, gaming and autonomous agents without centralized APIs. Backed by leading investors including Archetype and Accel, Ritual collaborates with researchers and model providers to expand open AI infrastructure for Web3. Headquartered in New York with a distributed research team across the US and Europe, the company operates at the intersection of cryptography, machine learning and distributed systems. Expect a research-driven culture that values intellectual depth, principled design and shipping usable infrastructure for AI-enabled crypto products.