Head of Alpha Platform
Defuse Labs develops NEAR Intents to enable seamless cross-chain interactions in an automated world — connecting AI, services, and financial applications.
About Defuse Labs
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. Defuse Labs is pioneering NEAR Intents, a next-generation transaction framework designed to enable seamless, AI-driven financial interactions. By automating complex cross-chain operations, NEAR Intents empowers autonomous agents, smart contracts, and decentralized services to execute transactions efficiently and securely.
Skills
About the Role
You will define and lead the strategy for Defuse's Alpha Platform, building systematic trading and liquidity optimization capabilities that power the next generation of intent-based liquidity. You will design game theoretical models of interaction between the NEAR Intents protocol, distribution channels, market makers, and end users. You will design, test, and iterate quantitative trading strategies across on-chain and cross-chain competitive markets, and build frameworks for signal generation, alpha discovery, and performance attribution. You will partner closely with protocol engineering to translate research into production-grade systems, and develop analytical infrastructure, simulation environments, and tooling for strategy research and execution. You will monitor market conditions, execution quality, and portfolio performance to continuously improve trading models, and collaborate with product and ecosystem teams to identify new market opportunities and monetization strategies. You will also build and mentor a high-performing quantitative research and analytics team.
Requirements
- 7+ years of experience in quantitative research, algorithmic trading, market making, or systematic investing
- 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
Responsibilities
- Design game theoretical models of interaction between the NEAR Intents protocol, distribution channels, market makers and end users
- Define and lead the strategy for Defuse's Alpha Platform, developing systematic trading and liquidity optimization capabilities
- 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
- 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
- Establish metrics, reporting, and experimentation frameworks to measure strategy effectiveness and business impact
- Build and mentor a high-performing quantitative research and analytics team