Protocol Security Researcher

The role

You will help build Aave's internal protocol security function. The work covers reviewing major protocol changes before deployment, attacker-driven analysis of contracts and integrations, and AI-assisted security tooling.

What you will do

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

Required qualifications

• 5+ years of relevant security experience
• Strong smart contract security background
• Ability to review complex codebases independently and reason about protocol-level failure modes
• Attacker mindset: moving from suspicion to how an exploit could work
• Strong understanding of DeFi mechanisms, including lending, liquidations, accounting, oracles, collateral, governance, and integrations
• Evidence of actively using AI to improve security research, review quality, or review throughput
• Clear written communication of risk, impact, uncertainty, and trade-offs
• 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

Before you apply

• Applicants who do not meet every requirement are still encouraged to get in touch

About the company

Aave Labs builds the Aave Protocol, described as the world's largest and most trusted onchain lending market. The company aims to make borrowing, saving, and earning more accessible globally.