Nov 20, 2025 
16 mins to read Cryptocurrency Debugging at 3 AM and the DeFi Talent Shortage
Man, while debugging the liquidation logic of a loan protocol just now, I suddenly realized it's exactly like the current DeFi talent market—when prices fluctuate sharply, the most lacking are those liquidation robot engineers who can quickly fix the system.
To be honest, the demand for Aave's hiring is just like their flash loans—fast, precise, and ruthless. Last week, I helped them interview a Solidity engineer, and the candidate claimed they could optimize a function with 300 gas, only to be asked on the spot to write a math proof by the CTO.
The Technical Stack Wars Among Four Major Protocols
1. Aave's Flash Loan Evolution
What's craziest about Aave's hiring now? Not the basic Solidity positions, but the need for "madmen" who understand both the economic models of loan protocols and can write ZK-SNARKs. Their V3 codebase is like a Swiss Army knife—so modular it's mind-blowing.
- Core development requirements: at least one complete AMM/loan protocol deployment
- Hidden assessment points: can you explain the minting and burning logic of aTokens and debt tokens?
- Death trap question: "Design an interest rate model to prevent flash loan attacks."
2. Compound's Governance Maze
Compound's hiring has recently taken a sharp turn. Since the COMP tokenomics was exploited, they've been aggressively poaching risk modelers from Traditional Finance. I've seen the most hardcore job descriptions stating: "Need someone who can simulate the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis being replayed on-chain using Python."
From a code perspective, their TimeLock contract now resembles a set of Russian nesting dolls—seven layers of permission management nested within each other. Suddenly, this reminds me of their interview process: technical rounds, governance rounds, economic rounds, psychology rounds...
MakerDAO's Law of the Jungle
To be honest, MakerDAO's hiring might be the most anti-human. They're not looking for regular developers, but for "holy trinity" beings who can handle smart contract vulnerabilities, RWA legal clauses, and Federal Reserve interest rate expectations all at once.
- Must-have skills: understand Maker's multi-collateral system design document (237-page PDF)
- 加分项: submitted improvement proposals for DAI's stability mechanism on GitHub
- Ultimate test: recreate a historical liquidation event from a specific block using DappTools on-site
Wait, did I just raise the bar too high? But that's reality—last year, they rejected enough candidates to form three L2 teams.
Venus Protocol's Breakout in Southeast Asia
Compared to the veteran players before, Venus Protocol's hiring is taking a differentiated approach. Their technical stack requirements state: "Must know Solidity, but even more importantly, understand the Southeast Asian small loan market."
Tell me about a real case: last month, they interviewed a Vietnamese developer who could accurately explain the correlation between local farmers' loan cycles and BNB chain gas fee fluctuations, and directly offered them a Senior position.
How to Break Through? A Practical Guide
After reviewing over 300 DeFi job listings on MyJob.one, I've compiled this survival guide:
- Aave's hiring通关秘籍: Treat V3's whitepaper as your bedtime reading, especially the chapter on isolation modes
- Compound's hiring hidden考点: Prepare to explain the long-term impact of COMP token inflation on protocol security
- MakerDAO's hiring ultimate weapon: Deploy your own mini Maker system (even if it's just with ETH collateral)
- Venus Protocol's hiring regional card: Research clearly the digital monetary policies of Southeast Asian central banks
Suddenly, a metaphor comes to mind: this is like preparing topics for the ETH Global Developer Conference—you need both technical depth and business acumen.
The New Battlefield After The Merge
To be honest, with EIP-1559 and PoS implementation, the loan protocol game is being restructured. Last week, Aave's hiring suddenly added a "MEV researcher" position, while MakerDAO started requiring "familiarity with LSDfi derivatives" in their job descriptions.
From a code perspective, this has transformed the originally simple interest calculation function into a chaotic system that must consider validator penalties, block reorganization probabilities, and liquidity redirection.
Finally, a piece of advice: if you want to establish yourself in the DeFi field, don't just study Solidity anymore. Top protocols now seek "holy trinity" talents who master mathematics, economics, and cryptography. But don't panic—the "urgent hiring" positions marked on MyJob.one often represent your opportunities to catch up.
