Research Intern – Decentralized Oracle Technologies

Job Description

Research Internship | Chainlink Labs

The Tone:
This is a Research Internship at Chainlink Labs, a globally remote organization. Chainlink operates as the industry-standard oracle platform, instrumental in bringing capital markets onchain and powering the majority of decentralized finance (DeFi). The company provides essential data, interoperability, compliance, and privacy standards required for advanced blockchain use cases, including institutional tokenized assets, lending, payments, and stablecoins. Since inventing decentralized oracle networks, Chainlink has enabled tens of trillions in transaction value and secures the vast majority of DeFi, with adoption by leading financial institutions and protocols worldwide. This role is crucial as Research Interns will support Chainlink’s mission to build the world’s most secure and flexible decentralized oracle technologies. Interns will work directly with top domain experts to identify and solve key research challenges, developing production solutions that maintain Chainlink’s position at the forefront of oracle system deployment and fuel the ongoing success of the smart contract ecosystem.

The TL;DR
• Role: Internship
• Location: Remote, Global
• Team: Works with Research Scientists, Technical Advisors, and Chainlink Core Engineering teams.
• Mission: Identify, solve, and build key research challenges and production solutions for decentralized oracle technologies.
• Tech Stack: Go, Typescript, Solidity, Python, LATEX, git, Linux/Unix.

What You’ll Actually Do
• Identify Research Challenges: Work closely with Chainlink core engineering teams to identify both short-term and long-term research challenges that are critical to the company’s overall success.
• Transition Innovations: Facilitate the successful transition of innovative research findings and solutions from Chainlink Labs into production-ready systems and products.
• Advance Oracle Technologies: Collaborate with research scientists and technical advisors to study, invent, and build cutting-edge oracle technologies, directly benefiting the company and the wider community.
• Monitor Technology Ecosystems: Stay continuously informed about the evolution of relevant technology ecosystems to ensure more effective application development and strategic planning.
• Guide Practical Research: Actively participate in relevant technical communities to help guide research efforts toward practical, impactful, and relevant work for the Chainlink platform.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Student pursuing a B.S. in computer science or an equivalent professional experience, complemented by foundational coursework in algorithms, data structures, and discrete mathematics.
• Experience: Required professional software development experience. Demonstrated familiarity with the academic process, including the ability to conduct literature searches and comprehend complex papers within a broader research context.
• Skills: Strong understanding of algorithms, data structures, and discrete mathematics; proficiency in professional software development; ability to engage with existing academic literature and research topics.
• Bonus: Advanced computer science or a related degree, or specific coursework in applied and theoretical cryptography, mechanism design, distributed systems, or other relevant fields. Familiarity with Go or Rust programming languages. Broad knowledge of blockchain technologies, with specific familiarity regarding smart contracts.