Protocol Security Researcher

Aave Labs, maker of the Aave Protocol (the largest onchain lending market), is standing up an internal protocol-security function. The hire sits between smart-contract security, protocol design, adversarial research, and AI-assisted review, vetting major protocol changes before audit and deployment while maintaining an ongoing view of risk across Aave's live systems.

• Review major Aave protocol changes before external audit or deployment
• Perform attacker-driven analysis of contracts, mechanisms, and integrations
• Join design and architecture discussions early enough to shape security decisions
• Assess risk in Aave-adjacent systems (assets, bridges, oracles, adapters, dependencies)
• Build and evaluate AI-assisted security tooling in real review workflows
• Turn findings into reusable invariants, assumptions, and monitoring ideas

• 5+ years of security experience with a strong smart-contract background
• Ability to independently review complex codebases for protocol-level failure modes
• Deep DeFi mechanism knowledge: lending, liquidations, oracles, collateral, governance
• Demonstrated use of AI to improve security review quality and throughput
• Strong written communication of risk, impact, and trade-offs

This is a hybrid role with flexibility for remote work, and compensation includes token grants alongside salary; no salary range was disclosed in the original posting.