Drand, Project Lead

About Protocol Labs
Protocol Labs drives breakthroughs in computing to push humanity forward. Protocol Labs is a product-development lab, but behind the protocols and tools we build, behind the research and implementations, are passionate people, teammates, and community members. Most teams in the Protocol Labs Network are fully distributed and work remotely around the world. Engineers, researchers, and operators work in the open to improve the internet — humanity's most important technology — as we explore new advances at the intersection of many exciting fields (web3, cryptography, networks, distributed systems) and cultures (startups, research, open-source, distributed work).
We seek a Project Lead to operate a team and drive the maintenance and deployment of the foundational Internet Core Service for randomness in collaboration with the League of Entropy
The Drand Project
Drand (pronounced “dee-rand”) is an unbiasable randomness beacon that can be used by all sorts of applications as their randomness source. The League of Entropy is a network maintained by multiple partners that use drand to generate unbiasable randomness, a critical service for many applications.
Learn more about drand and the League of Entropy at https://drand.love
Project Lead at Protocol Labs
This isn’t an ordinary lead position. We are a distributed organization of over 150 collaborators (worldwide), split across 15 countries and with no regular offices.  Protocol Labs currently has 6 Open Source Projects, which are maintained and developed by internal teams (between 2 and 40 people), as well as large ecosystems of contributors. 
Day-to-day, you’ll support the project through cross-functional problem solving, project ownership, data analysis, and research to answer open questions and provide the drand team and the League of Entropy with the versatility and creative thinking it needs to reach its goals. 
You’ll also help create processes and tools that enable Protocol Labs’s unique culture of innovation, collaboration, and performance.
As a Project Lead of the Drand Project, you will:

 
Lead the team that will maintain a high reliability service on which critical operations, that can potentially move tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in value, depend. 
 
Carry the vision of the project you will be owning, taking into account the future potential and input from stakeholders to identify new opportunities to grow the project.
 
Create and maintain plans using various project management tools, helping initiatives stay on track to meet their quarterly or annual targets.
 
Manage multiple high-profile external collaborations and drive consensus powered by the League of Entropy’s decentralized governance model.
 
Drive interest in drand and lead the recruitment and onboarding of new partners to the League of Entropy.
 
Communicate regularly with stakeholders and adjacent teams to build a shared understanding and accommodate competing priorities.
 
Lead the process of recruiting world-class engineers in collaboration with PL’s recruiting team.
 
Own the overall developer education and documentation platform, including sample applications to case studies, tutorials, and showcases.
 
And much more!

You may be a fit for this role if you have...

 
Demonstrable success fostering highly-functional, inclusive, collaborative, distributed teams as a Product Owner/Engineering Lead/Manager.
 
Experience influencing multi-institution efforts under decentralized governance.
 
Ability to thrive with a high level of self-direction, autonomy and responsibility.
 
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, and experience communicating across different audiences, including users, partners, and developers.
 
A passion for collaborating with people across Protocol Labs and the League of Entropy toward our shared mission.
 
Familiarity with cryptography, networking, and infrastructure concepts.

Highly-valued bonus points include:

 
Product management of distributed systems (e.g. databases, crypto projects and/or networks).
 
Experience working on open-source projects, leading non-profit endeavours, or managing communities.
 
Experience with or deep knowledge of globally distributed systems, cryptography, blockchain, or other related domains.
 
A track record of recruiting and retaining top talent to your teams.

What’s it like to work at Protocol Labs?
 
Protocol Labs' mission is to improve humanity’s most important technology, the Internet. We build protocols, systems, and tools to improve how it works. Today, we are focused on how we store, locate, and move information. Our projects include IPFS, Filecoin, libp2p, and more.
 
As a distributed team, we hire anywhere in the world, and at various levels of experience (entry, senior, staff). We look for people with unique perspectives and diverse backgrounds.
 
The base pay for this position currently ranges from $226,000 to $312,000, plus cryptocurrency, equity, and opportunities for upside through performance rewards in cryptocurrency and equity.  The base pay is based on a number of factors and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, experience, skills, abilities, training, and education.  We also have a great benefits package, including parental and other forms of leave, contributions to your retirement, and unlimited time off. For U.S.-based employees, we also provide competitive health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your family.