Solana Security in 2026: Teams, Jobs and Trust
Security is a growth sector on Solana. STRIDE, open roles at OtterSec and Asymmetric Research, and what that means for careers and capital.
By Brett · · 5 min read
Solana is not just shipping faster apps in 2026. It is professionalising how those apps stay safe.
TVL is up. Institutions are watching. Attackers are too. The quiet story underneath the price charts is a security stack that looks more like a real industry: standards, funded monitoring, incident response networks, and teams that are hiring.
If you are hunting a role, allocating capital, or building a protocol, this is the part of the ecosystem to take seriously.
Why security feels different this year
For a long time, Solana security meant "get an audit, ship, hope". That still matters. But it is no longer enough on its own.
Asymmetric Research and the Solana Foundation put a clearer frame around this in April 2026 with STRIDE (Solana Trust, Resilience and Infrastructure for DeFi Enterprises). The programme assesses protocols against eight security pillars and publishes findings. That transparency is useful for users and investors who are tired of guessing which teams take ops security seriously.
Protocols above $10M TVL that pass assessment can get ongoing opsec and active threat monitoring, funded through Solana Foundation grants. Protocols above $100M TVL can get Foundation-funded formal verification. That is not marketing fluff. It is capital flowing into defence.
Alongside STRIDE sits SIRN, the Solana Incident Response Network. Founding participants include Asymmetric Research, OtterSec, Neodyme, Squads Protocol, and ZeroShadow. The idea is simple: share threat intel, coordinate when something is on fire, and stop treating incidents as lone-wolf problems.
Browse the Security category on Solana Teams to see who is already listed.
The firms that keep getting called
OtterSec
OtterSec is still one of the names you see on serious Solana work. Their public numbers are hard to ignore: more than $36.82B in on-chain value secured, and a long trail of audits across L1, wallets, DeFi and bridges. They also maintain Anchor, which means they sit close to how a lot of Solana programs get written in the first place.
They are hiring. As of mid-October 2026, OtterSec lists a full-time Security Researcher role across AMER, EMEA and APAC, plus an Events Strategist based in New York. That mix tells you something: deep technical research and ecosystem presence. Security firms that only hide in Discord are leaving growth on the table.
Check their careers page at osec.io/careers before you apply. Roles move.
Asymmetric Research
Asymmetric is not just writing blog posts about STRIDE. They are staffing for it. Their Ashby board currently shows three open roles: Associate Site Reliability Engineer (Europe, remote), Security Engineer (AMER/EMEA/APAC, remote), and Strategic Partnerships Manager (US, NYC preferred).
That is a useful map of where Solana security work is going: SRE and monitoring for live systems, hands-on security engineering, and people who can talk to protocols and partners without sounding like a sales script.
Neodyme and Squads
Neodyme remains a core Solana security firm and SIRN founding member. Their Riverguard attack-simulation tooling is listed by the Solana Foundation as free for protocols deployed on Solana. That matters for early teams that cannot afford a full audit cycle every sprint.
Squads sits on the other side of the same problem: multisig and governance controls. Solana Foundation has publicly highlighted Squads as formally verified with 10+ audits. When investors ask "who holds the keys?", Squads-shaped answers are what serious teams give.
Free tools are part of the hiring story
Foundation-backed tooling lowered the floor for everyone: Hypernative and Range for monitoring and alerting, Riverguard for attack simulation, Sec3 X-Ray and AuditWare Radar for static analysis and templates. None of that replaces a good researcher. It does change the job.
The people getting hired now are not only "find the critical in a PDF". They wire monitoring, harden ops, review multisig setups, and help protocols pass a public standard. If your CV only says "I read Rust", stretch it. Show incident thinking, tooling, and how you communicate findings to non-security founders.
What this means for job seekers
- Target the firms with open roles first. OtterSec and Asymmetric Research are actively hiring. Do not wait for a perfect "Solana only" title. Cross-chain experience helps if you can speak Solana program risk clearly.
- Learn the ops layer. Misconfigured multisigs and weak access control keep showing up in real incidents. STRIDE exists partly because audits alone miss that.
- Follow the money above $10M TVL. Protocols that want Foundation-funded monitoring will need internal owners who can work with external security partners. That is a job shape inside DeFi teams, not only at audit shops.
- Use the directory. Start on solanateams.com/teams, filter into security and related Infrastructure listings, and track careers pages weekly.
What this means for investors
Security spend is a leading indicator, not a cost centre footnote.
When a protocol can point to STRIDE assessment, SIRN coverage, named auditors, and a clean multisig story, you are looking at operational maturity. When they cannot, you are underwriting hope.
Foundation-funded monitoring for larger TVL protocols also changes the risk picture. It does not remove protocol risk. It does reduce the chance that a quiet ops failure becomes a quiet total loss.
Watch which security firms keep winning work from the protocols you already like. OtterSec, Asymmetric Research, Neodyme and Squads are not the whole market, but they are a practical shortlist for diligence calls.
A realistic note
Security will not make every Solana product safe. Attackers keep improving. Bear markets squeeze budgets. Some teams will still ship careless code.
The optimistic read is still the right one: Solana is building the boring, grown-up layer that serious capital needs. Standards. Monitoring. Shared response. Open roles for people who can do the hard work.
That is a better setup for the next wave of builders than another year of "we will audit later".
What to do next
Explore live Solana teams on solanateams.com/teams. If you run a security firm, audit practice, or protocol with an open security function, list your team so job seekers and investors can find you.
