Open to opportunities

Thomas Liu

@thomasliu

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Senior blockchain engineer and architect building scalable DeFi and exchange systems.

United States

Message

What I'm looking for

I seek senior roles building protocol-level DeFi and exchange systems where I can lead engineering, design secure smart contracts, and scale cloud-native, cross-chain financial products.

I am a Senior Blockchain Engineer, Architect, and Full-Stack Developer with 7+ years building decentralized finance, exchange systems, payment networks, and blockchain protocols. I co-founded and served as CTO, delivering production-ready exchanges, non-custodial wallets, and tokenomics systems.

My work spans protocol design, smart contract engineering, and consensus research — contributing to Polkadot JAM and implementing high-throughput state management like Patricia Tries for order and swap tracking. I ship secure DeFi primitives, liquidity routing, and AMM modules across Web3 products.

I lead distributed engineering teams and manage full-stack infrastructure: cloud-native deployments on AWS and Kubernetes, CQRS patterns, PostgreSQL, and integration with CEX APIs for liquidity aggregation. I’ve overseen smart contract audits and mitigated on-chain liquidity risks for global pilot launches.

I am outcome-focused, blending deep technical R&D with product strategy to launch scalable financial products and privacy-preserving marketplaces. I actively publish community-focused research simplifying cryptographic proofs, consensus trade-offs, and exchange infrastructure.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Co-Founder / CTO

Current

HedgePay

Feb 2025 - Present (10 months)

Architected a hybrid CEX/DEX self-banking app combining custodial fiat ramps with decentralized liquidity protocols, led MVP delivery and global pilot launch while managing a distributed engineering team.

Solidity Scala Kubernetes PostgreSQL AWS CEX APIs Liquidity Pools Cross Chain Bridges

Current

Independent Blockchain Protocol Engineer

Current

Self-Employed

Jul 2024 - Present (1 year 5 months)

Conducted advanced protocol R&D and open-source contributions to the Polkadot JAM protocol, implementing DEX-style state machine abstractions and Patricia Trie–based state management for high-throughput exchanges.

Scala JAM Protocol Cryptography Distributed Systems Patricia Trie

Full-Stack Blockchain Developer

Metacommerce

Jun 2022 - Apr 2024 (1 year 10 months)

Built DEX-inspired smart contracts and hybrid off-chain/on-chain integrations for decentralized data marketplaces, implemented liquidity incentive models and cloud-native CQRS infrastructure.

Solidity Next.js CQRS PostgreSQL Liquidity Pools Tokenomics

Blockchain Developer

CafeCosmos

Apr 2021 - Jun 2022 (1 year 2 months)

Designed AMM pools and tokenomics for an on-chain P2E economy, integrated blockchain with Unity for in-game DEX swaps, and implemented smart contracts for community token value redistribution.

Solidity Hardhat TypeScript Unity Tokenomics

SDE Intern

Amazon

Jul 2021 - Sep 2021 (2 months)

Contributed backend features for vendor and dropshipping transaction settlement pipelines, implemented payment reconciliation modules and enhanced order routing for production systems.

Java AWS Transaction Processing Backend Development

SDE Intern

RBC Wealth Management

May 2020 - Aug 2020 (3 months)

Delivered productivity platform modules for client-asset management and prototyped Hyperledger Fabric integrations for decentralized trading infrastructure.

Java Hyperledger Fabric Financial Systems Secure Transaction Routing Prototyping

Software Developer

Interac Corp.

May 2019 - Dec 2019 (7 months)

Built a mock e-Transfer SDK simulating high-volume payments, prototyped Hyperledger Fabric settlement solutions, and delivered React.js testing tools for QA environments.

Hyperledger Fabric SDK Development Payment Rails React Testing