ZK Podcast

"Blockchains are not private enough for safe use by citizens, corporations, or dissidents."

Heliax is looking for a cryptographer & researcher interested in zero-knowledge cryptographic protocols and their application to distributed ledger technology to work with us to design, evaluate, and implement zero-knowledge proof constructions such as zkSNARKs and zkSTARKs, distributed cryptographic protocols such as threshold encryption and distributed key generation, and cryptographic primitives such as elliptic curves and hash functions, then put this cryptography into practice in order to realise privacy and scalability capabilities required by the next generation of blockchain networks.

This role offers the chance to work closely with a small team on compelling cross-disciplinary problems in theoretical computer science, cryptography, game theory, economics, and systems design, and enjoy a high degree of independence in working conditions and task prioritization.

Responsibilities

- Evaluate and analyze existing zkSNARK and zkSTARK proof systems such as Groth '16, Ben-Sasson '18, and PLONK for security, expressivity, and performance; monitor the state of the research field for compelling new theoretical advances
- Update & alter existing cryptographic protocols, customize them for specific proof-of-concept and production use-cases
- Produce technical specifications for designs & instantiations of cryptographic protocols and assist with implementation in coordination with team members
- Implement, review, and test cryptographic operations & protocols, primarily in Rust, evaluate existing implementations

Example projects

- The Multi-Asset Shielded Pool
- Ferveo: a DKG protocol for font running protection
- Cryptography research on Anoma’s blog
- Papers, such as Bandersnatch
- The PLONK by hand series (from our previous organization)
- The Demystification series (Supersonic, Fractal, from our previous organization)

Qualifications

- Prior experience with cryptographic protocols, especially zkSNARKS or zkSTARKs (though not specifically required)
- Prior experience in low-level systems programming, ideally in Rust
- Self-motivated & self-organized

Bonus Qualifications
- Academic research background in mathematics, computer science, economics, and/or game theory
- Prior experience with distributed ledger (blockchain) technology
- Experience in a functional programming language such as Haskell or Ocaml
- Experience with a proof assistance such as Idris, Coq, or Agda

Misc

Remote or local (Zürich/Zug, Berlin). When remote, preferred if mostly located within (+/- 7 hours) Central European time zones. North America is fine.

Ideally someone who enjoys travel, nature and hiking. Often we find that protocols are best designed not in a meeting room but rather on a trail 🏔️.

"Blockchains are not private enough for safe use by citizens, corporations, or dissidents."

Heliax is looking for a research cryptographer interested in fully-homomorphic encryption protocols
and their application to distributed ledger technology to work with us to design, evaluate, and
implement FHE constructions, then put this cryptography into practice in order to realise privacy and
scalability capabilities required by the next generation of blockchain networks.

This role offers the chance to work closely with a small team on compelling cross-disciplinary
problems in theoretical computer science, cryptography, game theory, economics, and systems
design, and enjoy a high degree of independence in working conditions and task prioritization.

Responsibilities

- Evaluate and analyze existing FHE protocols for security, expressivity, and performance, monitor the
state of the research field for compelling new theoretical advances, and conduct original exploratory
research into new constructions
- Update & alter existing protocols and implementations (such as nuFHE), customize them for
specific proof-of-concept and production use-cases
- Produce technical specifications for designs & instantiations of said protocols and assist with
implementation in coordination with team members

Qualifications

- Academic research background in mathematics, computer science, or cryptography
- Prior experience with fully-homomorphic encryption in a research context
- Self-motivated & self-organized

Bonus Qualifications

- Experience with (fully) homomorphic encryption libraries (e.g. SEAL, HElib)
- Prior experience in low-level systems programming, ideally in Rust
- Prior experience with distributed ledger (blockchain) technology

Misc.

Remote or local (Zürich/Zug, Berlin). When remote, preferred if mostly located within (+/- 7 hours)
Central European time zones. North America is fine.

Ideally someone who enjoys travel, nature and hiking. Often we find that protocols are best designed
not in a meeting room but rather on a trail 🏔️.

We seek a Senior Engineering Manager to take responsibility for building novel software technology in the world of blockchains - decentralized computing systems that put people back in control of their digital lives.

About Us

Mina Foundation is a public benefit corporation serving the Mina Protocol, the world's lightest
blockchain. Mina Protocol's native cryptocurrency, MINA, is the first with a small constant-size
blockchain. The Foundation supports participants, strategically allocates resources, ensures
network health and security, promotes adoption, and champions MINA in the wider world. Mina solves 3 of the most difficult challenges in the blockchain space: privacy, scalability, and
decentralization.

Join the team realizing this vision.

Profile

You, as Senior Engineering Manager, will bear full responsibility for at least one software engineering team, for the delivery of product features, and for the accomplishment of team missions. You must be an inspirational leader skilled at creating engagement and productivity. This role requires that you understand very well how to engineer and deliver software; you could do it all yourself, if you had more time. Coaching effective project management skills to your team must be easy for you. You must thrive in an organization that changes quickly, grows fast, and competes hard.

The Mina codebase uses a variety of programming languages, most notably OCaml. You must be comfortable engineering with all of these technologies. The ability to understand technical papers with applied mathematical content is required.

Responsibilities

As a Senior Engineering Manager, you will:

- Define and document the missions for teams.
- Deliver and maintain software throughout its entire lifecycle.
- Create aligned teams in a context of competing objectives.
- Produce an engineering environment with heavy emphasis on testing and testability.
- Morph DevOps processes to be more effective.
- Coach software engineers and other leaders to improve professionally.
- Guide the development and the documentation of the code base so that it becomes more cloud
friendly, more developer friendly, and easier to adopt.
- Transform the input of the Product team into engineering deliverables.
- Contribute to the software engineering hiring processes so that hired personnel enable Mina
Foundation to meet strategic goals.
- Tolerate quickly changing competitive landscapes.
- Coordinate well in projects that cross organizational boundaries.
- Connect with the ecosystem participants (software engineers and node operators, for example), address their needs, and incorporate their feedback into Mina.

Mina Foundation

Mina Foundation stewards the Mina Protocol - the world's lightest blockchain, powered by
participants. Our team is remote, and funded by top investors (including FTX, Coinbase Ventures, Polychain, Metastable, and Three Arrows). Mina Foundation is overseen by a team of
industry-leading experts.

Opportunity

We work on technologies with the potential to reimagine social structures. It is important to
incorporate diverse perspectives from conception through realization. This is your chance to join a small, collaborative team and to work on fascinating cross-disciplinary problems that span cryptography, engineering, product design, economics, and sociology.

We offer competitive compensation both in salary and equity as well as top-of-the-market benefits.

We seek a Software Engineer to build novel software technology in the world of blockchains -
decentralized computing systems that put people back in control of their digital lives.

About Us

Mina Foundation is a public benefit corporation serving the Mina Protocol, the world's lightest
blockchain. Mina Protocol's native cryptocurrency, MINA, is the first with a small constant-size
blockchain. The Foundation supports participants, strategically allocates resources, ensures
network health and security, promotes adoption, and champions MINA in the wider world. Mina
solves 3 of the most difficult challenges in the blockchain space: privacy, scalability, and
decentralization.

Join the team bringing this vision to reality.

Responsibilities

As a Software Engineer, you will:

- Develop software in OCaml, Rust, or JavaScript
- Implement improvements to the Mina Protocol
- Collaborate with Product, Cryptography, and other teams in the ecosystem to design, develop, build,
and release changes to the Mina Protocol, new related products, and developer tools
- Connect with the ecosystem participants (software engineers and node operators, for example),
address their needs, and incorporate their feedback into Mina

Profile

You have:
- Proven ability to develop software using modern techniques
- Some technical understanding of blockchain or distributed systems
- Strong technical background (ideally software engineering or computer science)
- Excellent communication skills
- Familiarity with pertinent technical concepts such as APIs, GraphQL, blockchains, distributed
systems, DevOps, Git

Mina Foundation

Mina Foundation stewards the Mina Protocol - the world's lightest blockchain, powered by
participants. Our team is remote, and funded by top investors (including FTX, Coinbase Ventures,
Polychain, Metastable, and Three Arrows). Mina Foundation is overseen by a team of
industry-leading experts.

Opportunity

We work on technologies with the potential to reimagine social structures. It is important to
incorporate diverse perspectives from conception through realization. This is your chance to join a
small, collaborative team and to work on fascinating cross-disciplinary problems that span
cryptography, engineering, product design, economics, and sociology.

We offer competitive compensation both in salary and equity as well as top-of-the-market benefits.