Former Helius Lead Infrastructure Engineer Accuses Founder of Misrepresentation and Workplace Toxicity
Miles Smith, a former lead infrastructure engineer at Helius, has come forward with allegations against Helius founder Mert Mumtaz. In a detailed article posted on January 30, 2025, Smith claimed that Mumtaz engaged in corporate misrepresentation, fostered a toxic workplace environment, and attempted to sabotage Smith’s career after he left Helius in 2023.
Smith’s grievances with Mumtaz began with what he described as an unconventional corporate structure at Helius. Mumtaz had assembled a C-team comprised solely of former Coinbase and AWS engineers with no prior C-level experience. When Smith suggested that more experienced leadership was needed, Mumtaz allegedly took it as a threat and began laying the groundwork for Smith’s constructive dismissal.
One of the key incidents cited by Smith was the 2023 Solana hackathon, where Xray, a team Smith was part of, came second with their human-readable Solana block explorer. Despite Mumtaz having previously hosted and funded the Xray team, he was allowed to vote in the competition, which Smith claims influenced the outcome in Xray’s favor. Subsequently, Mumtaz claimed Xray as a Helius product and informed the team that they would receive payment as hackathon winners.
Smith also detailed an incident where Mumtaz reportedly screamed verbal abuse at a female Cloudflare sales representative over the price of an Enterprise package. He further alleged that Helius engaged in corporate misrepresentation by hiring incompetent AWS engineers and masking technical shortcomings with paid services like QuickNode to maintain the appearance of superior performance.
The situation between Smith and Mumtaz deteriorated to the point where Smith was fired via text message while attending his son’s baseball game. It took six weeks for Helius to honor Smith’s final paycheck, and he claimed that Mumtaz actively obstructed fundraising efforts for Smith’s new startup by providing negative references to potential investors.
In 2024, Helius secured a $9.5 million Series A funding round to expand its team from 14 full-time staff to at least 18, including four new engineers. The allegations made by Smith shed light on the inner workings of Helius and raise concerns about corporate culture and leadership practices within the company.