Siza Buso Consulting
Job Description:
As the first Lead Smart Contract Engineer, you'll architect, implement, and own the lifecycle of the Solana programs that power next-generation on-chain products. You'll partner closely with the CTO and mentor junior developers while driving both greenfield protocol launches and iterative upgrades of production programs.
Responsibilities
As the first Lead Smart Contract Engineer, you'll architect, implement, and own the lifecycle of the Solana programs that power next-generation on-chain products. You'll partner closely with the CTO and mentor junior developers while driving both greenfield protocol launches and iterative upgrades of production programs.
Responsibilities
- Design & architect Solana programs and their on-chain account structures from ideation to mainnet.
- Implement & test high-performance programs in Rust using the Anchor framework.
- Own deployments across Solana clusters (mainnet-beta, devnet, testnet) and manage the program lifecycle.
- Maintain & upgrade existing programs: oversee Solana's native upgradeability, manage Program Derived Addresses (PDAs), and ensure stable account data layouts across versions.
- Harden security: write comprehensive unit and integration tests, run static analyzers, coordinate external audits, and remediate findings.
- Collaborate daily with frontend and product to ship end-to-end DeFi features on Solana.
- Mentor & lead: set best practices for junior Rust/Anchor engineers and help shape our on-chain architecture roadmap.
- 5+ years of experience as a software engineer, with 2+ years of hands-on experience architecting and deploying Solana programs in Rust.
- Successfully launched Solana protocols through to mainnet-beta and ensured the underlying programs have passed third-party audits.
- Deep knowledge of the Solana Program Model, the Sealevel runtime, Program Derived Addresses (PDAs), account validation, and common Solana-specific attack vectors (e.g., account confusion, missing ownership checks, type cosplay).
- Proficiency with the Anchor framework, solana-cli, and @solana/web3.js.
- Comfortable with Solana's Cross-Program Invocation (CPI) model and familiar with cross-chain communication protocols like Wormhole.
- Strong testing cultureunit, integration, and fuzz tests baked into CI pipelines.
- Excellent written & verbal communication; you're able to write concise technical specifications and audit reports.
- Ability to thrive in a high-ownership, fast-moving startup environment and set technical direction.