Technical Co-Founder & Lead AI/ML Engineer

Shield Finance is an ambitious next-generation DeFi platform that combines cutting-edge artificial intelligence with structured yield products to deliver protected, high-APY returns in any crypto market environment.

Our vision is to build an intelligent, self-adapting system that continuously understands shifting market regimes (trending, ranging, volatile) and automatically optimizes capital allocation across:

• Perpetual futures trading (directional & hedging strategies)
• Structured DeFi yield vaults (protected APY mechanisms with built-in downside shielding)
• Hybrid positions that combine on-chain yield with off-chain risk management

The platform will use advanced machine learning (regime detection, predictive modeling, reinforcement learning) to make real-time decisions, dynamically adjusting exposure, leverage, hedging, and yield farming tactics to maximize risk-adjusted returns while minimizing drawdowns — even in extreme volatility.

We are at the very earliest stage and are looking for the first technical co-founder — someone who will become the Lead AI/ML Engineer and help shape the core intelligence that turns this vision into reality.

Role & Responsibilities

As Co-Founder & Lead AI/ML Engineer you will define and build the AI brain of Shield Finance from the ground up. Key responsibilities include:

• Design and lead development of a multi-model regime detection engine (HMM/GMM, LSTM/Transformers, ensembles, RL agents) that classifies market states in real time
• Create the self-adaptive decision layer that switches between trading strategies, hedging tactics, and yield allocation based on regime probabilities
• Build online & offline retraining pipelines that keep the system learning from live and historical data
• Architect realistic, high-fidelity backtesting & simulation environments (slippage, funding rates, order book dynamics, multi-year data)
• Lead integration with DeFi structured yield protocols and perpetual futures exchanges to enable hybrid yield + trading strategies
• Design scalable, low-latency inference infrastructure (cloud-native, GPU/TPU capable) and production monitoring (drift detection, performance alerts, explainability)
• Collaborate closely on product vision, go-to-market strategy (dApp platform → high-yield DeFi product → potential quantitative fund)
• Help build and mentor the future engineering team as we scale

You Are Likely A Fit If You Have

• 4–8+ years of professional experience building production ML systems (strong preference for financial markets, time-series, DeFi or crypto)
• Deep expertise in at least two of: HMM/GMM, LSTM/GRU/Transformers, reinforcement learning (DQN/PPO), gradient boosting ensembles
• Proficiency with Python, PyTorch/TensorFlow, scikit-learn, pandas_ta, hmmlearn (or equivalent)
• Strong understanding of quantitative trading and DeFi yield concepts (Sharpe, drawdown, APY optimization, impermanent loss mitigation)
• Experience deploying ML models at scale in cloud environments (GCP/AWS/Azure preferred)
• Entrepreneurial DNA — excited by large equity ownership, high ambiguity, and turning vision into product
• Excellent communication skills (English fluent)

Nice-to-Haves (not required but highly valued):

• Previous work on adaptive trading systems, regime detection, or DeFi yield automation
• Experience integrating with DeFi protocols (structured vaults, yield optimizers, liquidity provision)
• Portfolio or GitHub showing ML applied to finance, crypto, or time-series forecasting
• Comfort with remote-first async collaboration

What We Offer

• Significant founding equity — your ownership grows with the platform and reflects your contribution to building something transformative
• Performance bonuses linked to key milestones (e.g., live profitability, yield targets, user growth, AUM, SaaS revenue)
• Complete ownership of the AI/ML stack — you define the intelligence behind Shield Finance
• Opportunity to co-own a future high-yield DeFi platform and potentially a quantitative crypto fund
• Fully remote work with flexible hours
• Fast execution path: prototype → testnet → live product → scale (12–24 months)

How to Apply

Send an email to [careers@shyield.finance] with:

1. Subject: “Co-Founder AI/ML – Shield Finance”

2. CV / LinkedIn profile

3. GitHub / portfolio (especially any trading/ML/DeFi/yield related work)

4. Short note (3–5 sentences): why you’re excited about building an AI-native DeFi yield platform, what unique value you would bring as a technical co-founder, and your equity expectations

5. Optional: one quick idea on how you would approach regime-aware yield optimization

We are looking for someone who wants to build something transformative — not just take a job.

If you see yourself helping create the next generation of intelligent DeFi yield infrastructure, we want to talk.