Developer Advisory Board - Season 7 Operating Budget

Elected Representatives đź’Ľ Renewal
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Proposed Lead: Zach Obront

Proposed Operating Budget: 190,000 OP (+100,000 relative to previous Season)

Contact Info: zobront@gmail.com

Previous Work & Qualifications

  • I served as the Developer Advisory Board Lead for Season 6, delivering on our KPIs and working with the community to formalize and expand the role of the DAB.
  • Outside of this role, I work primarily as a security researcher, with a focus on the OP ecosystem. For example, I placed 1st in the audit contest on the Bedrock Upgrade, 1st in the audit contest for Blast, and performed private audits for OP Labs, Base and Fraxtal.
  • I organized and judged the Fault Proof Audit Contest, which found multiple critical severity bugs in the Fault Dispute Game (leading to the fixes in the Granite upgrade).
  • I led the buildout of the original version of OP Succinct, the first upgrade to the OP Stack to allow teams to deploy full ZK validity proven chains.
  • In a past life, I co-founded and ran Scribe Media. This is irrelevant technically, but provided helpful experience in leading a team of 100+ people that carries over to this role.

Board Charter:

  • Link to S6 Charter
  • Link to S7 Charter Updates
  • To summarize the changes:
    • The DAB will expand its responsibilities from Season 6 based on requests by the Grants Council and Foundation.
    • The Grants Council’s Audit Team will be disbanded, and responsibilities for the audit program will shift to the DAB. The DAB will be solely responsible for selecting projects for audit grants, while the GC will remain responsible for administering the grants.
    • The DAB will be responsible for selecting applicants for all Foundation Missions (see Guide to Season 7)
    • The DAB will take an active role in crafting Missions, both by writing the ongoing Foundation Missions, and by providing support to the GC in writing Governance Missions. A Mission Scout role will be introduced to support with this responsibility.
    • The DAB will provide “devrel for Missions” services, making ourselves available to help applicants through office hours, one on one questions, and exploring additional opportunities to attract more developers to contribute to the Collective.
    • Given the large increase in responsibilities and the desire to keep the team from growing too much, we will shift feedback to the GC so that each project receives feedback from one DAB member, instead of two.
    • Non-technical summaries by the DAB will be replaced by a detailed explanation of the DAB’s assessment of the safety and importance of the protocol upgrade. This will be shared by the Lead, and therefore the Upgrade Czar role will be removed.

Breakdown of Council Operating Budget:

All DAB members will be responsible for supporting Mission Applications. They will be divided into three subcommittees based on the types of applications they will be supporting.

  • Lead (1) = 30k OP (+5k from last season)
    • The Lead is responsible for ensuring that the DAB is both meeting its current objectives and finding opportunities to further support the Collective. This includes:
      • (a) leading all board meetings and internal decisions.
      • (b) overseeing the decisions and feedback of all subcommittees.
      • (c) leading board discussions on approving protocol upgrades, and communicating these decisions (along with helpful voting context) to the community.
      • (d) act as the tiebreaker for the Audit subcommittee and Foundation Mission subcommittee if the members disagree.
      • (e) collaborating with other Council Leads to find opportunities to provide support across the collective.
      • (f) tracking KPIs and drafting the Season 7 retrospective at the end of the season.
  • Audit Request Team (2) = 12.5k OP each (-2.5k from last season in the GC)
    • The Audit Request team will be responsible for evaluating and selecting applicants to provide subsidized audits for.
    • They will start by using the existing Grants Council rubric and processes for this selection, but will be responsible for adapting these processes to achieve the best results. This includes coordinating with the Foundation’s Growth team to get their input on the value of various projects to the ecosystem.
    • Eligibility Criteria: To be selected to the Audit Request Team, an applicant should have established themselves as a senior auditor, either with a role at a firm or through major successes in audit contests and bug bounties.
  • Governance Mission Team (3) = 12.5k OP each (+2.5k from last season)
    • The Governance Mission team will work with the Grants Council to provide technical feedback on all Mission applicants.
    • Each cycle, applications will be divided between the members of this subcommittee, with one member providing feedback on each application providing their perspective on the technical feasibility, team quality, alignment of the project with the MR, appropriateness of budget, and other criteria that are helpful for the GC to make informed decisions on technical applications.
    • Eligibility Criteria: To be selected to the Governance Mission Team, an applicant should have established themselves as a knowledgeable developer with a wide ranging understanding of the ecosystem. Ideally, they have directly contributed to important protocols or tools.
  • Foundation Mission Team (2) = 12.5k OP each (new role)
    • The Foundation Mission team will be responsible for selecting which teams are chosen to fulfill the Foundation Missions.
    • These are larger grants with higher stakes, so these decisions will be slower and take a lot more thought, more like hiring than giving a grant.
    • Eligibility Criteria: To be selected to the Foundation Mission Team, an applicant should have both deep technical knowledge and the ability to make high stakes assessments of teams and people. Ideally, they have worked in an engineering management role.
  • OP Labs Representative (1) = 0 OP (equal to last season)
    • The OP Labs Representative will provide support to all subcommittees of the DAB. With deeper knowledge of OP roadmap, they are able to act as a sanity check on priorities and decisions, and can provide extra support to whichever subcommittee has the highest work volume in a given cycle.

After the election, the DAB will hold an internal vote to assign the following additional roles. These responsibilities will be taken on by existing members in addition to their subcommittee roles.

  • Ops Lead (1) = 7.5k OP additional payment (equal to last season)
    • The Ops Lead existed last season and was a crucial role in helping the DAB to manage a lot of details without dropping any balls. This role involves:
      • (a) improving the IOPs,
      • (b) scheduling meetings,
      • (c) interfacing with other Councils,
      • (d) organizing processes and tools for the DAB to perform its duties, and
      • (e) looking for any other opportunities to make changes that will keep the DAB’s efforts focused and effective
  • Mission Scouts (2) = 7.5k OP additional payment (new role)
    • This is a new role that will exist given the additional responsibility of crafting Missions. These two members will deeply understand the OP Labs roadmap, and be able to think creatively about missing gaps that Missions could fill. They must:
      • (a) deeply understand the OP Labs roadmap, and thinking creatively about missing gaps that Missions could fill,
      • (b) specifically, stay closely on top of interop developments, including protocol level changes and products being built,
      • (c) conceptualizing, getting consensus on, drafting, and posting the ongoing Foundation Missions, and
      • (d) working with the Grants Council to ensure their Mission process takes into account the specific technical outcomes that would most support the Collective.

Finally, in line with the Grants Council Budget and Milestones & Metrics Budget, we will be stepping away from any future compensation through RetroPGF. With that in mind, we will add a Bonus Payment of 50k OP (the same as was awarded to the S6 DAB in RetroPGF), to come at the end of the season and distributed in a way that will be determined along with the other Council Leads.

KPIs & Measurements

User Experience KPIs:

  • Did 100% of Protocol Upgrades have a non-technical summary posted within 72 hours and get approval or comments from the DAB?
  • What NPS score would the Grants Council reviewers provide (answering: “On a scale from 1-10, if it were up to you, how likely would you be to renew the DAB next season?”)
  • What NPS score would the Foundation give the DAB (answering: “On a scale from 1-10, if it were up to you, how likely would you be to renew the DAB next season?”)

Performance KPIs:

  • Did the number of Mission applicants increase in S7 as the DAB took on more devrel responsibilities to support applicants?
  • Did the number of milestones missed by grant recipients decrease on DAB-approved grants relative to grants before the DAB?
  • Did Missions authored by the DAB end up leading to meaningful technical progress, as evluated by the OP Labs team?
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As someone less familiar with the collective process, the OP Lab representative is being directly compensated by OP, which is the reason they do not receive an OP grant compensation for their role, correct?

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Yep, that’s exactly right.

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Thank you Zach for taking the time to make this proposal. We believe the DAB is a key pillar within OP’s structure, and we’re excited to see it take on more responsibilities. As part of our commitment to the Feedback Commission, we would like to share some ideas and reflections.

The Lead role now has greater responsibilities, and the increased compensation +5k OP looks reasonable and accurate.

We see as a positive rescope that the Audit Request Team, which did not exist as a separate team in Season 6, has been migrated from the Grants Council. The reorganization of responsibilities looks very positive, as it reduces the size of the Grants Council while allowing for closer collaboration with the DAB.

The slight reduction in compensation for the Audit Request Team (-2.5k OP compared to previous Grants Council reviewers) also seems reasonable given the narrowed scope.

The new Foundation Mission Team is a positive addition, that might reflect a shift towards more strategic oversight in grant selection. The fact that these roles require deeper technical expertise boosts the DAB’s capacity to manage larger grants with higher stakes.

About Governance Mission Team, how would the workflow be structured? From what we can infer, it seems to propose that only one member works per cycle, leaving two members inactive while waiting for their turn. Taking into account the governance calendar, between a member finishing their cycle and waiting for their next shift, they will be inactive for 6 weeks. If that’s the case, we believe this might not be the most efficient use of time, as it would be better for all three members to remain active and divide the cycle’s tasks among them.

The Governance Mission Team sees a slight compensation increase compared to Season 6, which can be attributed to clearer delineation of governance-focused responsibilities, particularly in providing technical feedback for Mission applicants. However, if the workflow is indeed structured with one member active per cycle, perhaps the previous budget of 12.5k OP could be maintained without the suggested increase, or even reduced to 10k OP.

We believe that the creation of these new roles is a very wise move. Creating Mission Requests is a time-consuming and often very demanding process. By creating well thought out Mission Requests we will definitely be on the right path to achieving this season’s Intent.

At SEEDGov, we believe that, overall, the proposed budget for Season 7 is reasonable and clear given the significant increase in the volume of activities and responsibilities the DAB will take.

The total budget for Season 7 increases by 51,35%, rising from 92,500 OP in Season 6 to 140k OP in Season 7. If we compare the amounts between S6 and S7, there is a justified increase of 25k OP, corresponding to the allocation for the Audit Team now integrated into the DAB.

All roles in the Audit Request Team, Foundation Mission Team, and Governance Mission Team are set to receive 12.5k OP per member. That said, the workflow framework for the Governance Mission Team is unclear to us, as it suggests that only one member would work per cycle (please correct us if we are wrong). Given that there are three members, this would mean they rotate every six weeks.

As an idea, if the Governance Mission Team operates intermittently on a six-week rotation, it might be more efficient for their budget to reduce their budget to 10k OP for only two members, eliminating one member. With this suggestion, the total budget would be 122.5k OP, representing a 32.43% increase from Season 6 to Season 7.

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Thanks so much for the detailed feedback, @SEEDGov.

I will clarify in the budget, but the Governance Mission Team won’t be rotating. Rather, there are usually about 30-40 applications per cycle, so each of the 3 members will provide feedback to 10-15 applications every cycle.

The change from last season is that, because all 7 members were providing this feedback, we were able to have 2 DAB members provide feedback per application. Now that there will only be 3 members providing feedback, it will be 1 DAB member per application instead.

I hope that’s more clear! I know the budget increase is large as a percentage, but a lot of extra responsibilities were added to the DAB and this seems like the minimum possible increase to responsibly handle all of them.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

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GM! I think the DAB has been consistently taking on more responsibilities and doing a great job, so the budget increase makes sense to me.

I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

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The SEED Gov delegation, as we have communicated here, with @Joxes being an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power we believe this proposal is ready to move towards a vote.

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We are an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and we believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

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I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power, and I believe this proposal is ready for a vote.

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We are an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and we believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

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We are an Optimism Delegate with sufficient voting power, and believe this proposal is ready for a vote.

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I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

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I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

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I am an Optimism delegate [Delegate Commitments - #65 by mastermojo ] with sufficient voting power, and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

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As a member of the Collective Feedback Commission, I have been asked to provide feedback on the DAB Season 7 Operating Budget.

The Developer Advisory Board (DAB) plays a critical role for the OP Collective, especially given the intent for Season 7. As such, I believe that the DAB operating budget being approved by the Token House is extremely important for the success of Optimism in Season 7 — not only to support the intent, but to progress governance along the decentralisation roadmap. The increased responsibilities (and corresponding budgets for those roles) seem reasonable when benchmarked against the Grants Council, which I think is the most comparable council.

New Roles
I appreciate you have listed UX and Performance KPIs. As a note for the future, it would be great to see a thorough evaluation of the new roles (Foundation Mission Team and Mission Scouts) in the retrospective to ensure that the roles have impact that is aligned with the budget.

Bonus Payment
Could you share some insight into the considerations for the Bonus Payment? I understand there’s not yet a defined framework for its distribution, and that discussions with other Council Leads are planned. However, I’m curious about your initial thoughts—are you leaning towards linking the Bonus Payment to impact, similar to Retro Rounds, or is it more likely to be tied to meeting the DAB’s KPIs? Given that this payment represents a significant portion of the DAB’s budget for Season 7, any preliminary thoughts you have would be helpful.

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Thanks so much @Alisha - this is great feedback.

Agreed on the new roles. I will make a note for the S7 Retro to include a breakdown of all new roles & responsibilities, and whether they should be renewed for S8.

For the Bonus payment, the top priority is to ensure they align with the GC and M&M councils, who I know have been thinking more about this. Previously, our RPGF was divided loosely based on responsibilities per member, but I think there is room to more greatly reward more contributions.

That could include (a) some kind of internal 360 feedback process, (b) evaluation from other councils, (c) leads sitting out of some portion of the rewards and providing the assessment, (d) asking the community / Citizens to vote.

But all of those are likely to include too much subjectivity and I would prefer the assessment is more concrete. It’ll take more thinking to get there though.

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Hello, @zachobront . I am interested in the Governance Mission Team. I would like to know when the applications will open and what the application process will be. Thanks for you work!

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Hey @Cooper01,

Voting on the budget is happening this week (Thurs through Thurs).

Self nominations (like an application) open up next Thurs Dec 19, and will stay open for a few weeks until the election in early Jan.

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We vote FOR this proposal.

Here’s the rationale and context behind our decision.

The DAB’s expanded responsibilities—including selecting applicants for Foundation Missions and actively shaping these missions—justify the proposed changes. The increase in the Lead’s compensation (30,000 OP, +5,000 OP from last season) seems reasonable.
Other improvements include:

  • The addition of the Audit Request Team (2): 12,500 OP each (a reduction of 2,500 OP from the Grants Council budget).
  • The introduction of the Mission Scouts (2) role.

We also see value in the inclusion of a detailed explanation of the DAB’s assessment of protocol upgrades. This shared by the Lead, eliminates the need for the “Upgrade Czar” role. However, we believe that the non-technical summaries are very useful and should not be replaced.

The decision to exclude RetroFunding participation (similar to the Grants Council and M&M Council) while assigning a Bonus Payment of 50,000 OP—the same amount awarded through RetroPGF in Season 6—again underscores a need to revisit and refine the RetroFunding model.

1 Like