Solana Program Engineer

Overview

Application

Who We Are

The Solana Foundation is a non-profit based in Zug, Switzerland, dedicated to the adoption, decentralization, and security of the Solana network. Solana is a high performance blockchain that can deliver a fast and friendly user experience, without sacrificing security. The Solana Foundation is working to realize a world where individuals own their data, use permissionless networks, and transfer information and value freely around the world. We are looking for talented people who are willing to jump right in and use their expertise to help the ecosystem build.

What We Do

The Foundation collaborates with both internal contributors and external ecosystem teams to solve key technical challenges and accelerate the development of core infrastructure, developer tooling, and open source standards. This includes everything from on-chain protocols to growth tooling, smart contract frameworks, and new developer experiences.

We work closely with many of the most ambitious teams in crypto — including those building next-generation DeFi, payments, gaming, DePIN, and Real-World Asset platforms.

The Opportunity

We’re looking for talented Solana Program Engineers, with a strong emphasis on developers who have built — or want to build — cutting-edge DeFi protocols on Solana.

This is an open application to express your interest in working on one of several high-impact teams across the Solana ecosystem. Depending on your background and interests, we may connect you with projects building:

Advanced DeFi Protocols

Central Limit Order Books (CLOBs)

On-chain AMMs and hybrid liquidity models

Lending markets, margin trading, and perps

Bonding curves and structured products

Oracle integrations and liquidation engines

Governance, fee sharing, and staking mechanisms

Core Infrastructure & Tooling

Smart contract wallets and programmable access

Gasless relayers and session keys

Indexers and custom RPCs

Anchor / Pinocchio contributions

On-chain Applications & Middleware

Token launch frameworks and fair distribution tooling

Real-world asset registries and payment rails

DePIN coordination systems

Selected candidates will be matched with ecosystem teams (and in some cases, the Foundation’s internal contributors) based on your skills, interests, and availability. Roles vary from full-time to grant-based, depending on the team.

You’ll Be Great at This If You…

Build high-performance production grade Solana programs in Rust (Anchor or Native)

Are passionate about DeFi and familiar with onchain mechanics

Love taking ideas from 0→1 and iterating quickly with real users

Can reason about technical trade-offs and system design under constraints

Enjoy contributing to open source and improving developer tools

Thrive in startup-like environments: fast-paced, independent, and impact-driven

Looking for entrepreneurial, founding opportunities with the smartest people and skin in the game early on.

Desired Background

2+ years of experience building and shipping Solana programs

Strong familiarity with Solana’s runtime (SVM), SPL tokens, PDAs, and Anchor

Hands-on experience building or contributing to DeFi protocols

Understanding of state compression, account metering, and program optimization

Bonus: Familiarity with Solana-native DeFi protocols like OpenBook, Jupiter, MarginFi, Orca, or Meteora

Ready to build the next generation of DeFi?

If you’re a Rust engineer excited to work on the bleeding edge of Solana — whether you’ve already deployed programs or are looking to level up — we want to hear from you.

Submit your info and we’ll reach out as opportunities arise across the Solana ecosystem.