Principal Engineer

Overview

About the Role

Responsibilities

• Define and own the engineering roadmap aligned with Mtransform's product and business strategy.
• Active coder in Solidity, Rust, Go, or Node with Front end like React, Vue, Angular — no pure managers
• Establish engineering best practices, coding standards, CI/CD pipelines, and quality frameworks.
• Drive architectural decisions across blockchain, backend, and frontend layers.
• Collaborate closely with product leadership to translate vision into executable engineering plans.
• Champion a culture of technical excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Mentor and retain world-class engineers across blockchain, full-stack, DevOps, Security concepts, and QA disciplines.
• Foster a high-trust, inclusive, and collaborative engineering culture.
• Build and scale the engineering organization from current state to future headcount targets.
• Remove blockers, resolve technical conflict, and ensure team alignment across squads.
• Own end-to-end delivery of DEX and CEX platform features, smart contract releases, and token infrastructure.
• Implement and oversee Agile / Scrum processes, sprint planning, and release management.
• Partner with QA and security teams to ensure robust testing, audit readiness, and zero-downtime deployments.
• Drive incident response, post-mortems, and continuous reliability improvement.
• Lead the engineering of decentralized exchange (DEX) protocols, liquidity pools, and AMM mechanisms.
• Oversee development and integration of centralized exchange (CEX) backend systems, order books, and matching engines.
• Guide smart contract design, auditing, and deployment across EVM-compatible and non-EVM chains.
• Drive token engineering: ERC-20 / ERC-721 / ERC-1155 standards, tokenomics implementation, and vesting contracts.
• Stay at the forefront of DeFi, Layer 2 scaling solutions, cross-chain bridges, and emerging Web3 protocols.
• Provide clear and concise engineering updates to C-suite and board stakeholders.
• Manage relationships with third-party vendors, blockchain infrastructure providers, and technology partners.
• Represent the engineering team in cross-functional leadership meetings and strategic planning sessions.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a senior engineering leadership role.
• Proven experience leading and growing engineering teams of 10+ developers in a product-driven environment.
• Deep hands-on experience with Decentralised Exchanges (DEX): AMMs, order book DEXs, liquidity protocols (Uniswap, dYdX, Curve, etc.).
• Strong experience with Centralised Exchange (CEX) architecture: trading engines, market making, custody, and compliance integration.
• Expert-level understanding of blockchain development: Ethereum, Solidity, EVM, smart contract auditing, and gas optimisation.
• Experience with crypto tokens and tokenomics: ERC standards, staking, governance tokens, and token distribution mechanisms.
• Proficient in at least two of: Solidity, Rust (Solana/Substrate), Go, Python, Node.js, TypeScript.
• Strong knowledge of Web3 tooling: Hardhat / Foundry, The Graph, ethers.js / web3.js, IPFS, Chainlink.
• Track record of delivering secure, scalable, high-availability financial or crypto platforms in production.
• Experience with Layer 2 solutions (Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, Polygon) and cross-chain bridges is highly desirable.
• Solid understanding of cryptographic principles, wallet infrastructure, and key management (MPC, HSM, multi-sig).
• Familiarity with regulatory and compliance requirements in crypto (KYC/AML integration, travel rule, VASP frameworks).
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English; ability to present complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences.

Required Skills

• Experience building or scaling a crypto exchange from 0-to-1 or through hyper-growth.
• Familiarity with institutional-grade infrastructure: FIX protocol, colocation, prime brokerage APIs.
• Background in quantitative finance, algorithmic trading, or market microstructure.
• Open-source contributions to blockchain or DeFi protocols.

Preferred Skills

• Strategic Thinking — Ability to align engineering execution with long-term product and business vision.
• Technical Credibility — Commands respect from engineers through depth of knowledge and hands-on capability.
• Talent Development — Passionate about growing engineers and building high-performing, diverse teams.
• Decisive Communication — Clearly articulates trade-offs, priorities, and decisions to all stakeholders.
• Execution Discipline — Delivers reliably in fast-paced, ambiguous, startup-like environments.
• Security-First Mindset — Treats security and smart contract integrity as non-negotiable engineering principles.
• Collaborative Leadership — Bridges engineering, product, business, and compliance functions seamlessly.
• Competitive salary based on experience and qualifications.

Equal Opportunity Statement