Distributed Systems Evaluation Engineer (Vac DST)

About Vac

Vac builds public good protocols for the decentralized web. We do applied research based on which we build protocols, libraries and publications.

The role

We are seeking an experienced Distributed Systems Evaluation Engineer to join the Vac DST team. This role focuses on rigorously assessing the performance and reliability of IFT projects at scale. You’ll be responsible for designing and executing comprehensive evaluation strategies, leveraging both large-scale lab deployments and protocol behavior modeling scripts. Your expertise will be crucial in analyzing these complex distributed systems, automating intricate test scenarios, and providing in-depth insights into system behaviors.
Working closely with cross-functional teams, you’ll troubleshoot complex issues and translate technical data into actionable recommendations. Proficiency in containerization, cloud technologies, and distributed systems principles is essential.
This position offers the opportunity to make a significant impact on the robustness and scalability of IFT projects, contributing to the development of next-generation decentralized technologies.

Key responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain sophisticated tools for analyzing distributed systems at scale, ensuring robust and efficient testing processes.
• Orchestrate and automate large-scale deployments to rigorously validate the functionality, performance, and scalability of complex distributed systems.
• Identify, document, reproduce, and troubleshoot intricate issues in distributed environments, collaborating closely with IFT project teams to resolve challenges.
• Develop a comprehensive understanding of IFT project protocols and components to provide insightful analyses that drive improvements and inform decision-making.
• Conduct and interpret statistical analyses of system outputs, translating complex data into actionable insights for stakeholders.
• Create and maintain scripts that model protocol behavior, utilizing these models to validate and sanity-check large-scale deployment runs.
• Work with Docker, Kubernetes, and POSIX-like systems

You ideally will have

• Solid experience with scripting languages like Python.
• Experience with statistical analysis tools, like pandas, seaborn.
• Experience with systems programming languages like Nim, Go, Rust.
• Understanding of network behaviors (libp2p, gossipsub, p2p networks).
• Working knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes, and POSIX-like systems.
• Excellent written and conversational communication skills.
• Alignment with our core values and principles.

Bonus points

• Experience with off-the-shelf networking stacks such as libp2p.
• Experience in blockchain technology.
• Experience working for an open-source organization.

[Don’t worry if you don’t meet all of these criteria, we’d still love to hear from you anyway if you think you’d be a great fit for this role. Just explain to us why in your cover letter].

Hiring process

• Interview with our POps team
• Interview with team member from the Vac DST team
• Take home assignment & interview with team member from the Vac DST team
• Interview with Vac team lead

The steps may change along the way if we see it makes sense to adapt the interview stages, so please consider the above as a guideline.

Compensation

The expected compensation range for this role is negotiable, dependent on how we assess your skills and experience throughout our interview process. We are happy to pay in any mix of fiat/crypto.