DevOps Engineer (Vac DST) at IFT (Global)

IFT · Global·2h ago

Role details

Work type

Remote

Job description

About Logos (λ)

logos.co is a movement of technologists, creatives, strategists, and activists working together to build a sovereign, people-owned technology stack that revitalises civil society and protects digital liberties at scale.

This position is within the IFT Technical Services (IFT-TS) Distributed Systems Testing (DST) Team, a team that primarily supports Logos, while also contributing to other IFT projects.

The role

We are seeking an experienced Distributed Systems Evaluation Engineer to join the Institute of Free Technology - Technical Services, on the Distributed Systems Testing (IFT-TS DST) team. This role focuses on rigorously assessing the performance and reliability of IFT projects at scale, where Logos (λ) is one of them. Logos (λ) technology stack is composed of 3 main components:

Logos (λ) Blockchain: Advanced privacy for a new era of decentralised applications and social institutions.
Logos (λ) Messaging: Private peer‑to‑peer communication that resists surveillance and censorship.
Logos (λ) Storage: Secure decentralised storage enabling fully decentralised apps and file sharing.

We are looking for a talented and enthusiastic DevOps Engineer to join our Distributed Systems Testing (DST) team. You’ll be responsible for designing and executing comprehensive evaluation strategies, leveraging both large-scale lab deployments and protocol behavior modeling scripts. Your expertise will be crucial in analyzing these complex distributed systems, automating intricate test scenarios, and providing in-depth insights into system behaviors. Working closely with cross-functional teams, you’ll troubleshoot complex issues and translate technical data into actionable recommendations. Proficiency in containerization, cloud technologies, and distributed systems principles is essential.

Key responsibilities

Design, configure, and optimize Kubernetes clusters to support large-scale experiments and benchmarks of P2P technologies.
Continuously improve cluster scalability and resource utilization, enabling increasingly complex deployments and experiments.
Set up, maintain, and optimize supporting infrastructure such as monitoring, logging, and observability stacks (Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, etc.).
Collaborate with DST researchers and engineers to streamline experimentation workflows and make analysis easier and more reproducible.
Automate infrastructure and deployment workflows to increase reliability and reduce overhead.
Troubleshoot, profile, and tune distributed workloads to ensure accurate and performant benchmarking.
Identify, reproduce, and debug complex issues in distributed systems, working closely with Logos development teams.

You ideally will have

Strong experience with Kubernetes and container orchestration in production or research environments.
Solid understanding of cloud infrastructure, Linux systems, and networking (especially relevant to distributed/P2P systems).
Familiarity with monitoring and logging tools (Grafana, Prometheus, VictoriaLogs, etc.).
Experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform, Ansible, Helm, etc.).
Proficiency in at least one scripting/programming language (ideally Python).
Interest in or experience with distributed systems, P2P networks, or blockchain technologies.
Experience with networks and systems programming.
Excellent written and conversational communication skills.
Alignment with our core values and principles.

Bonus points

Hands-on experience with libp2p or projects in the Logos collective.
Background in performance benchmarking, scalability testing, or systems research.
Contributions to open source projects.
Experience working for an open-source organization.

Interview Process

Interview with our POps team
Interview with team member from the IFT-TS DST team
Take-home assignment and discussion of results
Interview with IFT-TS team lead

Why work at IFT

Culture: Highly mission-driven, with a strong emphasis on liberty, privacy, and decentralization. The team is described as flat, with minimal hierarchy, no fixed work hours, and a high degree of autonomy.
Remote-first: Fully distributed team (200+ contributors) across the globe. Work is async and remote-friendly.
Engineering culture: Engineers have real ownership over frontier tech work. The environment is described as "small team, many hats" where contributors solve hard problems without established playbooks.
Compensation: Competitive, negotiable base compensation, paid in any mix of fiat/crypto. Performance bonuses for certain roles. Compensation ranges visible for some roles (e.g., $81k–$150k for engineering roles).
Notable perks: Work on truly cutting-edge Web3 infrastructure; contribute to open-source public goods; be part of a movement, not just a company; high autonomy and flexibility.

About IFT

Company Overview

One-liner: The Institute of Free Technology (IFT) is a mission-driven Web3 tech startup studio and venture builder that develops, funds, and scales open-source public goods—including the Logos ecosystem of decentralized infrastructure protocols—to safeguard civil liberties in the digital age.
Entity Type: Private (Non-profit / Venture Studio; funded by substantial historical capital deployment)
Headquarters: Distributed / Remote-first (no central physical HQ; team is globally distributed)
Founded: 2017 (as Status) / IFT as current entity structure
Founders: Carl, Jarrad Hope, and others (Status co-founders)

Core Business

Primary industries: Web3 Infrastructure, Decentralized Communication Protocols, Blockchain Technology, Open-Source Software Development
Target customers: Developers, dApp builders, Web3 projects, network states, and privacy-conscious end-users (B2B primarily, B2C via consumer apps like Status)
Mission: To build public goods to safeguard civil liberties in the digital age, guided by principles of liberty, censorship resistance, security, privacy, and inclusivity.

Products & Services

Logos (logos.co): A movement supporting the development of the decentralized web. Logos technologies lay the foundations for a freer internet upon which communities can evolve into network states. Each protocol in the Logos stack empowers users while upholding civil liberties. Includes:
- Status (status.app): An open-source, privacy-focused messaging app and mobile browser for the Ethereum network.
- Status Network (status.network): The underlying decentralized communication network.
- Nimbus (nimbus.team): A lightweight, efficient Ethereum execution and consensus client.
- Keycard (keycard.tech): A hardware wallet for secure key management.
- Waku: A decentralized, privacy-preserving peer-to-peer messaging protocol (under Logos).
- Vac: A research and development team building secure, private messaging protocols (including MLS-based group messaging).
IFT Venture Studio: Provides financial, technical, legal, people operations, and brand-building support to incubate new startups from idea to market.

Market Standing

Valuation/Market Cap: Not publicly disclosed (private non-profit entity)
Key Metric: Team of 200+ core contributors (as of 2026), plus a growing community of contributors
Notable Investors/Partners: Backed by substantial historical capital deployment from Web3-native angels, VCs, family offices, and institutional allocators. The organization is actively fundraising for Logos, targeting crypto VCs, HNWIs, and family offices with a thesis in privacy infrastructure.
Growth Signals: Active hiring across engineering, research, and fundraising roles; expanding the Logos ecosystem; developing frontier decentralized messaging protocols (MLS, Waku); growing headcount from a smaller base to 200+ core contributors.

Competitive Advantages

Mission-driven focus: Unlike for-profit Web3 projects, IFT is a non-profit dedicated to public goods, which attracts top talent aligned with its principles.
Full-stack venture studio model: Provides comprehensive support (tech, legal, ops, brand) to incubate projects from concept to market, creating a strong ecosystem of interoperable protocols.
Deep technical moat: Building frontier technologies (decentralized group messaging over MLS, peer-to-peer protocols, zero-knowledge proofs, post-quantum cryptography) with no established playbooks, giving them a first-mover advantage.
Strong brand and community: Status and Logos have established credibility in the Web3 space, with a loyal community and a clear manifesto.

Strategic Focus

Logos ecosystem growth: The primary current priority is building and scaling the Logos stack of decentralized infrastructure protocols.
Fundraising for Logos: Actively raising capital from institutional investors, family offices, and crypto VCs to fund the next phase of development.
Decentralized messaging: Advancing the state of the art in private, decentralized group messaging (MLS, Waku) as a core pillar of the freer internet vision.
Open-source development: Continuing to build all technology as public goods, with minimal hierarchy and a globally distributed, asynchronous team.

Sources

Job description

About Logos (λ)

The role

Key responsibilities

Why work at IFT

Application questions