Protocol Security Researcher

Remote, London·Full-time·Added 26 days ago (last checked 8 Oct)

Aave Labs

8 open roles

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Overview

Job details

Full-time
Per the ad.
Fully remote
Per the ad.

Requirements

Have 5+ years of experience
Mid-level role.

Skills

Requirements

What we're looking for

5+ years of relevant security experience
Strong smart contract security background
Ability to independently review complex codebases and reason about protocol-level failure modes
Attacker mindset: you can move from "this looks wrong" to "this is how it could be exploited"
Strong understanding of DeFi mechanisms, including lending, liquidations, accounting, oracles, collateral, governance, and integrations
Evidence that you are actively using AI to improve security research, review quality, or review throughput
Clear written communication: you can explain risk, impact, uncertainty, and trade-offs to engineers and non-security stakeholders
Good judgment about severity, exploitability, and when a finding matters

Nice to have

Experience with formal methods, fuzzing, invariant testing, or custom security tooling
Experience building internal tools for security review, code understanding, or knowledge management
Experience working with external audit firms or leading audit engagements
Familiarity with governance payloads, upgrade systems, permissioning, and incident response
Open-source security research, published findings, CTFs, bug bounties, or prior public vulnerability research

Haven't quite met all the criteria? Let's not miss out on the chance to speak. Whilst you might not meet every single requirement, you might bring other, more exciting skills to the companies!

The role

Aave is looking for a Protocol Security Researcher to help build its internal protocol security function.

The role sits at the intersection of smart contract security, protocol design, adversarial research, and AI-assisted review. You will help assess major protocol changes before deployment, maintain security context across Aave's deployed systems, and reason about the risks introduced by critical dependencies, integrations, and Aave-adjacent infrastructure.

This is not a narrow audit role. The goal is to improve Aave's ability to understand and reduce protocol risk continuously.

What you'll do

Review major Aave protocol changes before external audit or deployment
Perform attacker-driven analysis of smart contracts, protocol mechanisms, and integrations
Participate in design and architecture discussions early enough to influence security-relevant decisions
Identify risks in Aave-adjacent systems, including assets, bridges, oracles, adapters, and critical dependencies
Contribute to AI-assisted security tooling and evaluate its effectiveness in real review workflows
Turn review findings into reusable knowledge, invariants, assumptions, and testing or monitoring ideas
Work with monitoring and incident response teams when review findings imply operational detection or response needs
Collaborate with external auditors by helping define scope, known risks, and areas of concern

About Aave Labs

Headquarters: London, United Kingdom

In their own words

About the company & team

Aave Labs began with a simple question: how do we make financial services like borrowing, saving, and earning more accessible globally?

We built the Aave Protocol, now the world's largest and most trusted onchain lending market, connecting decentralized finance with individuals, traditional finance, and fintech.

Today, we build trusted, high-quality products that expand access to lending, credit, and savings globally

We build trusted products that help people access and discover economic opportunities.

We hold a high bar for quality and craftsmanship. No detail is too small. Trust depends on it.

We're a global team building products people can actually use, turning complex technology into something simple and reliable.

We stay aligned, move quickly, and think long term, while keeping teams lean and focused on impact.

Additional information

Aave Labs celebrates diversity and views each and every team member as a separate individual with their own unique identity. No matter your race, religion, gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation or even the wallet you use, we welcome you at Aave Labs. As an equal opportunities employer, we take accountability and believe in everyone's potential to build, create and inspire changes. With a mission to build a diverse workforce, we are proud to foster a working environment in which everyone can feel safe and valued for who they are.

All open roles at Aave Labs