Defuse Labs develops NEAR Intents to enable seamless cross-chain interactions in an automated world—connecting AI, services, and financial applications. At Defuse Labs, we design intent-driven liquidity layers where smart contracts breathe, AI transacts, and chains sync in real time. With expertise in AI, cryptography, and decentralized finance, our team is redefining how intelligent agents interact across blockchain networks.

We are looking for a technically exceptional Alpha Researcher to help build and scale Defuse's quantitative strategies and infrastructure. This role sits at the intersection of market making, quantitative research, software engineering, and decentralized markets, working hands-on on systematic trading strategies, signal generation frameworks, and execution systems that power the next generation of intent-based liquidity. You will report to the Head of Alpha and work closely with protocol engineering, product, and ecosystem teams. The ideal candidate combines a strong quantitative and engineering background with hands-on trading experience and a track record of turning research into profitable production systems.

Responsibilities

• Design game theoretical models of interaction between the NEAR Intents protocol, distribution channels, market makers and the end users

• Research, design, test, and iterate quantitative trading strategies across on-chain and cross-chain competitive markets

• Build frameworks for signal generation, alpha discovery, and performance attribution

• Develop systematic trading and liquidity optimization capabilities for Defuse's Alpha Platform

• Partner closely with protocol engineering to translate research into production-grade systems

• Develop analytical infrastructure, simulation environments, and tooling for strategy research and execution

• Monitor market conditions, execution quality, and portfolio performance, continuously improving trading models

• Collaborate with product and ecosystem teams to identify new market opportunities and monetization strategies

• Contribute to metrics, reporting, and experimentation frameworks to measure strategy effectiveness and business impact

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience in quantitative research, algorithmic trading, market making, or systematic investing (7+ years for the Senior level)

• Strong background in mathematics, statistics, computer science, engineering, or a related quantitative field

• Experience developing and deploying systematic trading strategies in crypto or traditional financial markets

• Strong programming skills (TypeScript required; Rust, Python, or Go are a plus)

• Deep understanding of market microstructure, execution algorithms, liquidity dynamics, and risk management

• Experience working with large datasets and building analytical pipelines

• Ability to collaborate effectively with software engineers and protocol developers

• Strong commercial mindset with the ability to translate research into profitable strategies

• Excellent communication skills and ability to explain complex quantitative concepts to both technical and business audiences

Nice to Have

• Experience building alpha generation or signal discovery engines

• Knowledge of MEV, cross-chain execution, and decentralized exchange infrastructure

• Experience with high-frequency or low-latency trading systems

• Familiarity with AI and machine learning techniques applied to quantitative trading

• Experience operating market-making or liquidity provision strategies

• Contributions to open-source quantitative or blockchain infrastructure projects

• Experience with Apache Airflow and dbt (data build tool) 

• Basic understanding of ELT processes and how they differ from traditional ETL workflows