Senior Protocol Security Engineer

Department: R&D

Location: Western EU

Employment Type: FullTime

As a Senior Protocol Security Engineer at Kiln, you’ll own the security of our smart contract products from design through production.

You’ll work hands-on across smart contract audits, monitoring, incident response, and security tooling, collaborating closely with Smart Contract, Protocol, and Infrastructure teams to strengthen security and safety across the entire product lifecycle.

Reporting to the VP of Security, you’ll play a key role in defining, implementing, and operating Kiln’s smart contract security posture at scale.

Responsibilities:

• Protect Kiln’s production protocols accros Kiln Onchain (dedicated staking and liquid staking protocols), Kiln DeFi (ERC-4626 vaults built on top of lending and RWA protocols), and Railnet (vault and validator infrastructure).

• Design and execute smart contract security testing, including invariants, fuzzing, and exploratory formal verification.

• Perform internal smart contract security audits and provide clear, actionable remediation guidance.

• Own security sign-off for smart contract releases and act as a key decision-maker on security trade-offs.

• Contribute to protocol-level threat modelling, including economic, governance, and composability risks.

• Build and maintain smart contract security tooling: contract inventory, governance automation, monitoring, and alerting in production.

• Continuously improve Kiln’s smart contract security framework: aligned with business growth, protocol complexity, and compliance requirements.

• Act as the primary point of contact for smart contract security at Kiln, coordinating with external auditors and supporting security certifications.

• Partner closely with Protocol, EVM, Infrastructure, and Product teams to embed security into design reviews, CI/CD, testing, and release workflows.

Stack:

• Smart Contracts (EVM): Solidity, Vyper, Foundry, Certora

• Software: Python, Golang

• Infrastructure: AWS, Kubernetes, Web3Signer, Hashicorp Vault, Prometheus

Requirements

• 5+ years of engineering experience in Web3, with smart contracts running in production.

• Strong hands-on experience with smart contract security, including audits, reviews, or protocol design.

• Solid understanding of protocol-level threat models, including MEV and oracle manipulation, governance and economic attacks, and composability or systemic risk.

• Experience working with external auditors, security reviews, or certification processes.

• Familiarity with bug bounty programs and vulnerability disclosure workflows.

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex security topics to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Nice to have

• CTF and Bug bounty track record.

• Contributions to open-source security or smart contract tooling.

• Fluent (written and spoken) in both French and English.

About Kiln:

Kiln is the leading institutional onchain asset and yield management platform, enabling institutions to generate yield on their digital assets and empower their users with direct access to onchain yield. In 2025, Kiln surpassed $18 billion in assets delegated, providing access to diverse yield sources across 30+ PoS networks – from native staking to DeFi strategies.

Trusted by industry leaders including VanEck, CoinShares, Crypto.com, Fireblocks, Ledger, Coinbase, and Binance US, Kiln offers a comprehensive suite of yield products with real-time reporting and monetization tools. The platform enables custodians, wallets, exchanges, and asset managers to streamline onchain asset management operations across multiple providers and protocols. Kiln is SOC 2 Type II compliant.

We are looking for mission-driven individuals who thrive in dynamic environments, seek to pursue their deep technical curiosity and value genuine teamwork where collective growth and success are paramount. Our team is now just over 100 Kilners with experience from industry leaders such as Google, Meta, Circle, Ledger, Chainalysis, 0x, Mantle Network and more.

We've raised $30M in total funding from prominent investors, including 1kx, Crypto.com, Illuminate Financial, Consensys, Wintermute, Kraken Ventures...

Join our mission and help us make the web more secure, stable, decentralized, and fair!

How Kiln will support you:

At Kiln, our values drive us: Technical Excellence ensures top security and usability; Innovation-Driven Meritocracy elevates groundbreaking ideas; Trust and Transparency build reliability through open communication; and People First keeps our team and clients at the heart of everything we do.

• A fast-paced, bureaucracy-free work environment

• Equity share options in the business: if Kiln succeeds, we all succeed!

• Competitive salary

• Flexible holiday

• Flexible remote working

• Choose your IT equipment

• Internet connection: €50/month

• Significant personal development budget (books, training)

• Overseas tech conferences budget

Kiln is an Equal Opportunity Employer

We are committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace where everyone is valued and respected. We welcome applications from all backgrounds, including women or persons with disabilities.

Your interview process

Our thorough process ensures the best fit for both you and Kiln, and we strive to make each step valuable and efficient.

1. Recruiter Interview (45 min)

2. Take-home test (< 3 hours)

3. Technical Interview (60 min)

4. Core Values Interview (45 min)

5. Founders Interview (30 min)

6. Offer!

Your personal information will be securely stored in our Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and will not be shared with external parties. We comply fully with GDPR regulations to protect your data and privacy.

Please note that we do not sponsor visas for persons without work authorization in your location. This role is for full-time employees only (no B2B or contractors). Thank you!