Validator Engineer

About the Company

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.

Responsibilities

• Own the uptime, performance, and reliability of Ritual’s validators
• Manage upgrades, snapshots, and sync performance
• Build and automate bare-metal & cloud deployments using existing simulation frameworks
• Orchestrate client upgrades, parameter changes, and hard-forks with zero downtime
• Profile and patch critical paths for optimal performance of execution and consensus clients
• Produce run-books, maintain documentation, and support validator operators via Discord

Requirements

• 4+ years operating high-availability distributed systems
• Direct experience running PoS validators on EVM-based chains
• Proficiency in Go and Rust
• Ability to read, debug, and extend Execution Layer (EL) and Consensus Layer (CL) client code
• Strong grasp of protocol-level concepts (fork-choice, evidence handling, slashing, state sync)
• Expertise in Kubernetes, Helm, Terraform, and CI/CD workflows
• Advanced Linux user with deep networking and system hardening knowledge
• Strong focus on observability (logs, metrics, traces)

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting external validator operators during testnet or mainnet launches
• Upstream contributions to execution and consensus clients
• Experience orchestrating GPU workloads or compute-intensive pipelines
• Familiarity with deploying and tuning open-source AI models
• Experience interfacing with infrastructure partners, custodians, and auditors

Benefits

• Highly competitive compensation package including annual discretionary bonus
• 100% of premiums covered on highest quality healthcare
• Aggressive company 401k match
• Fully remote work options