Curation Team Lead - Lido Earn

Lido Earn's non-custodial vaults deploy >$100m across on-chain yield strategies selected through an independent curation process. As Curation Team Lead, you define the methodology governing this process, qualification criteria, concentration/counterparty limits, and risk monitoring across allocations. You lead financial analysis of new opportunities, document curation rationale, and own operational procedures (rebalancing, withdrawals, incident response). The role spans DeFi risk analysis, protocol operations, and stakeholder communications, requiring fluency in credit-style analysis, relationship management, and engineering coordination.

Key Scope

Curation & Allocation

• Define qualification criteria for strategies, counterparties, and protocols

• Lead financial and reputational due diligence on new opportunities

• Set allocation limits, concentration rules, and counterparty exposure caps

Risk Management

• Identify and monitor smart contract, liquidity, counterparty, market risks across active vaults

• Maintain a risk framework with clear thresholds and escalation paths

• Own incident response end-to-end: detection, resolution, post-mortem

Operations

• Define parameters for rebalancing, withdrawals, and vault lifecycle events

• Build runbooks so operations don't depend on any single person

• Work with engineering to automate and audit operational processes

Governance & External Stakeholders

• Represent curation decisions in DAO governance and community forums if needed

• Manage relationships with counterparties, protocol teams, and strategy providers

What We're Looking For

We're open to two types of backgrounds: Either, you are already working in a similar capacity in the DeFi space or you have a strong traditional finance background in other asset classes, technical abilities and a genuine interest in the space.

Path A - DeFi Asset Management

• Experience in a strategy, risk, or portfolio role at a DeFi protocol, crypto fund, or on-chain asset manager

• Hands-on familiarity with yield strategy evaluation and strategy risk assessment

• Working knowledge of DeFi risk categories: technical / smart contract risk, liquidity risk, oracle manipulation, counterparty/protocol risk

• Comfortable reading on-chain data and using tools like Dune, Tenderly, or similar, running if needed

Path B - TradFi Asset Management + DeFi Conviction

• Background in fixed-income portfolio management, credit risk, structured products at a bank, asset manager, or hedge fund; a background in other asset classes (equities, commodities, FX etc) may also be considered

• You understand how DeFi protocols actually work. You can explain AMM mechanics, lending market risk, or LST dynamics without being prompted

• You've been building in or around DeFi on your own time: reading code, running positions, or contributing to protocols

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Quantitative Economics/Finance, Statistics, Data Science, Computer Science, or a closely related field

• Strong analytical foundation: you build models, stress-test assumptions, and don't trust numbers you haven't verified

• Clear, direct communication: you can write a risk brief for a governance vote and present it to a skeptical community

• Ownership mindset: you treat problems as yours to solve, not to escalate

• Up-to-date with the frontiers of workflow efficiency, particularly with regards to the latest AI tooling (Claude, Codex etc)

Nice to Have

• Experience with writing EVM smart contract code (Solidity, Vyper etc), familiarity with private key management, Safe multi-signature wallets

• Strong understanding of (crypto) market microstructure and portfolio/risk concepts

• Experience with on-chain monitoring or risk frameworks (Gauntlet, Chaos Labs, etc.)

• Comfort collaborating with both technical and non-technical internal (engineering, business development, finance) as well as a variety of external stakeholders

How You'll Be Measured

• Risk-adjusted yield relative to agreed benchmarks

• Zero material losses attributable to curation or counterparty failures

• Time-to-deploy for new strategy allocations

• Operational reliability: no execution failures from inadequate processes or single-person dependencies

• Quality and timeliness of risk reporting and governance documentation

Key Factors

Organization: Lido Ecosystem Foundation (working closely with Lido Labs Foundation and contributing to the Lido DAO)

Compensation: USD $190,000-$230,000 base (12-month contract) + performance-based component based on vaults’ yield

Location: Globally remote