About the job

This is a unique opportunity to lead the technical community for Standard Bearer, a Web3 & Society project developing technical standards to help Web3 projects cooperate, interoperate, and succeed.

In the early 1990s, standards like TCP/IP, HTTP, and SSL built the foundation for the GAFA-dominated Web2.We've seen proto-examples of similar standards in Web3:

• ERC-20 created the ICO boom
• ERC-721 led to NFTs marketplaces
• ERC-4626 will lead to more #DeFi vaults

But there's still no neutral governing body for Web3. What would it look like If we built a Web3-native W3C?

  I. What is Roote?

Roote (www.roote.co) is an educational hub and startup studio accelerating the personal and collective transformation necessary for humanity's transition to the Wisdom Age.

• Our educational hub runs the Roote Fellowship, a podcast, and a newsletter.
• Our startup studio launches Roote Projects, ambitious projects which catalyze systems-level change for a wiser world. Web3 & Society is a Roote Project.

II. Role Overview

• You will be responsible for creating technical standards and growing the Standard Bearer community.
• Web3 is Open by Default. It is built on open protocols by people with open values.
• We can leverage that openness to build cross-community standards to make Web3 thrive.
• In 100 years, we'll think it's crazy we had GAFA companies that didn't interoperate. The Future is Open. Standard Bearer helps catalyze that future.

Your north star is: Can you help create a web3-native W3C that builds standards to help Web3 succeed?

  This position is extremely entrepreneurial. We’re looking for a relentlessly resourceful teammate who learns and executes quickly.

If you're interested in leading something new that will maximize your rate-of-learning, please apply!

  What You'll Do

You might jump right in to existing technical standards work, or explore the wider space of standards before diving in. Some example lines of work:

• Create standards and participate in technical standard discussions.
• Conduct 100s of customer interviews to understand what Web3 standards are needed to help the ecosystem thrive (ETHPrize-style crowdsourcing is a good model).
• Synthesize learnings into a set of RFPs that can be funded by orgs and Gitcoin grants. Manage the bounty process.
• Create reports on the state of Web3 Standards (example for DAOs).
• Develop Standard Bearer into a sustainable org by getting funds through grants like Gitcoin.
• Build a Standard Bearer community into a larger org with many working groups, as the W3C did for Web1 and Web2.
• Collaborate with excellent existing standards projects like DAOStarOne, ETHMagicians, IBC, TokenEngineeringCommons, and other service GlueDAOs.

After 1 year, success looks like: you’ve talked with 100s of standards members, have helped push forward 1-3 in-process standards, have helped catalyze 1-3 new standards, and have a community of 10+ dedicated Standard Bearer members.  

After 3 years, success looks like: You've kickstarted W3C for Web3. Standard Bearer has 10 FTEs, 25 part-time, and hundreds of dedicated community members creating technical standards. You've helped create the glue for to bring Web3 together.  

  Note: You might want to work on ETH standards, cross-chain standards, #ReFi standards, or anything else! There's lots of standards work to be done across all the categories below

You May Be a Fit if You

• Have been green pilled and are excited by the future of Web3.
• Are excited by the nitty-gritty of developing technical standards through rough consensus and running code
• Love connecting with new people, and helping people connect with each other.
• Have created technical standards communities from scratch. (Or just want to do so!)
• Have excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Have a proven ability to be a self-starter capable of driving customer results without significant supervision.
• Have the ability to bring structure to ambiguous strategic questions and thrive in an unstructured, fast-moving environment.
• Have a strong bias toward concrete action. You should often ask: "Why can't this be done sooner?"
• Have a strong bias towards ambition. You should often ask: "Is this the most ambitious plan we could come up with?"

Even if not all of these apply to you, we'd still love to consider your application, particularly if you'd like to learn more of these. Studies show that you can be considered for a role even if many of a job posting's listed qualifications don't apply to you. We evaluate all applications holistically.

  See: What Roote Hires For.

Why You Might Be Excited About Us

• You get to be weird and creative. This is not a traditional VC firm, tech company, online school, or academic research hub.
• You want to work with us. Here is our team. And here are our How to Work With Me Manuals.
• We have a great network. You want to collaborate with global leaders and ambitious frontier people.
• You are aligned with Roote's guiding mission and values.

To learn more about Roote, check out our website, which includes our report on Building The Wisdom Age and our illustrated piece on Marriage Counseling With Capitalism.

III. LogisticsType:

Full-timeTime

Expectation: Start as soon as possible.

Location: We are a remote-first org based in the SF Bay Area. If you’re here, we’d love to see you in person a few days a week. If you’re not here, we have regular offsites.

Compensation: The starting salary is $80,000/year

Benefits: We have an extremely flexible leave policy and provide employee benefits including 401K matching, full health, dental, and vision coverage.

(The listed salary is based on US rates. We adjust salaries to reflect regional costs of living.)