AI Staff Member
Ethereum Foundation
full-time
Posted on:
Location Type: Remote
Location: Remote • 🇨🇭 Switzerland
Visit company websiteJob Level
Lead
Tech Stack
Distributed SystemsOpen Source
About the role
- Lay the foundations of a new discipline (AI on blockchains): Conduct foundational research at the intersection of AI and Ethereum—multi-agent systems coordination, decentralization of key components in the AI stack, AI system validation, and privacy.
- Close the chasm between Ethereum and AI communities: Forge relationships and collaborations with AI researchers and practitioners—both industry and academic—through co-writing ERCs/EIPs (such as ERC-8004 which is getting a lot of traction in the ecosystem), contributing to open source AI projects and frameworks, co-authoring papers, and presenting at major conferences.
- Influence the roadmap of the dAI Team: Translate research into applied proposals that improve the Ethereum protocol and ecosystem infrastructure.
- Research in conversation with the community, not in isolation: AI on Ethereum is fundamentally about using the chain as a coordination layer to foster security, privacy, composability, and other properties that centralized AI cannot provide. Staying closely connected to the community is a priority—both by actively sharing new projects and results outwardly, and by drawing inspiration from the many experiments ecosystem teams are running in this emerging field.
Requirements
- Relevant background: Demonstrated skills related to state-of-the-art model development practices, emergent frameworks and tooling, or privacy-preserving compute methods. Prior experience with blockchain protocols is a plus. Contributions to open source AI or distributed systems projects are especially valued.
- Research excellence: Strong background in research, whether in academia, labs, or applied industry settings. Experience ideally includes AI, distributed systems, optimization, or cryptography. A PhD is welcome but not required if you have a strong track record of impactful projects.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills: Comfortable collaborating with diverse teams across both the AI and open-source/blockchain ecosystems, as well as with academic researchers and industry practitioners.
- Passion for decentralized AI: Strong motivation to carve an alternative path for AI—one that is open source, censorship resistant, democratic, private, and secure.
- Ability to thrive in a distributed environment: Comfortable working in a fully remote, asynchronous organization across time zones.
Benefits
- Competitive compensation
- Flexible time-off
Applicant Tracking System Keywords
Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.
Hard skills
AIblockchainEthereummulti-agent systemsprivacy-preserving compute methodsoptimizationcryptographymodel development practicesdistributed systemsopen source contributions
Soft skills
communicationcollaborationresearch excellencecommunity engagementmotivationadaptabilityteamworkrelationship buildingpresentation skillsproblem-solving