Shinzo is building the read layer for blockchains—a trustless, verifiable, permissionless infrastructure for blockchain data access. We’re solving one of crypto’s dirty secrets: the applications everyone calls “trustless” actually depend on centralized indexers that can fail, manipulate, or gatekeep the data they serve.

We believe blockchain data should be a public good—verifiable by anyone, controlled by no one, and accessible without permission. Our mission is to make the entire blockchain data stack as trustless as the blockchains themselves, eliminating the rent-seeking intermediaries that extract value from ecosystems while introducing the very risks decentralization was supposed to solve.

We’re not writing whitepapers and asking for token purchases based on promises. We’re building working technology with a trusted community of developers who care about getting blockchain infrastructure right.

The Role

We’re looking for a Protocol Engineer to work on the core systems that power validator-native indexing across multiple blockchain ecosystems. You’ll be designing and implementing the protocol-level primitives that enable trustless data extraction, transformation, and distribution at scale.

This isn’t about building another API wrapper around existing indexers. You’ll be working at the intersection of consensus mechanisms, cryptographic verification systems, and peer-to-peer networking—creating infrastructure that eliminates trusted intermediaries from the blockchain data stack entirely.

What You’ll Do

• Contribute to ShinzoHub, the orchestration layer that coordinates data availability, pricing, and incentives across the Shinzo network
• Build economic mechanisms that align validator, host, and consumer incentives around reliable, verifiable data delivery
• Architect cross-chain coordination protocols on ShinzoHub—an EVM-compatible chain built on Cosmos SDK—enabling unified data markets across blockchain ecosystems
• Develop staking, slashing, and reward distribution systems that ensure honest participation without sacrificing cryptographic guarantees
• Implement dispute resolution and verification challenge protocols for data integrity claims
• Design fee markets and pricing mechanisms for blockchain data that balance accessibility with sustainable economics
• Build governance modules for protocol upgrades, parameter changes, and network coordination
• Collaborate with DevRel to translate protocol implementations into clear documentation for the ecosystem
• Contribute to open-source development under MIT license

What We’re Looking For

Required:

• 4+ years of experience in blockchain infrastructure and protocol development
• Experience with inter-blockchain communication protocols (IBC, bridges, or other cross-chain messaging systems)
• Chain-agnostic mindset—you’re not a one-trick protocol engineer. You’ve worked across multiple blockchain architectures and can adapt quickly to new ones without religious attachment to any single ecosystem
• Deep hands-on experience with Cosmos SDK—you’ve built modules, worked with IBC, or contributed to Cosmos-based chains
• Strong EVM expertise—you understand how Ethereum nodes work at the protocol level, not just smart contract development
• Proficiency in Go and/or Rust for systems programming
• Experience with peer-to-peer networking (LibP2P, devp2p, or similar)
• Understanding of cryptographic primitives: Merkle trees, hash functions, digital signatures
• Track record of shipping production systems that handle real-world scale and failure modes

Strongly Preferred:

• Experience with CRDTs, eventual consistency, or other distributed data structures
• Familiarity with zero-knowledge proof systems (SNARKs, STARKs, recursive proofs)
• Contributions to open-source blockchain infrastructure projects
• Experience with content-addressable storage (IPFS, IPLD)
• Understanding of blockchain consensus mechanisms beyond just PoS/PoW basics
• Background in database internals or query engine design

Bonus Points:

• You’ve debugged a consensus failure at 2am
• You believe blockchain infrastructure should deliver on the ethos—trustless, verifiable, permissionless—or it’s not worth building
• You understand why economic security (staking/slashing) isn’t the same as cryptographic security

Tech Stack

• Protocol: ShinzoHub (EVM-compatible chain built on Cosmos SDK)
• Languages: Go, Rust, WebAssembly
• Database: DefraDB (Merkle CRDTs, IPLD, content-addressable storage)
• Data Transformation: LensVM (WebAssembly-based bi-directional lenses)

Why Shinzo

The Problem Is Real: Every dApp you’ve ever used depends on centralized indexers. When Infura goes down, “decentralized” applications stop working. When The Graph’s indexers disagree, there’s no cryptographic way to verify who’s right. We’re building infrastructure that actually delivers on blockchain’s original promise.

The Tech Is Ambitious: Validator-native indexing with cryptographic verification isn’t a small engineering challenge. You’ll be working on hard problems at the intersection of protocol economics, cryptography, and blockchain consensus—the kind of work that advances the field, not just ships another product.

The Team Ships: We’re product-led and open-source. No vaporware, no token-first development. We build working technology with developers who provide meaningful feedback, then iterate based on real usage.

The Impact Scales: Indexing infrastructure touches every application built on blockchains. Getting this right means every DeFi protocol, every NFT marketplace, every cross-chain bridge can operate without trusted intermediaries.

Shinzo is building infrastructure for a multi-chain future. We’re looking for engineers who obsess over developer experience.