Matter Labs is hiring a

Web3 Senior LLVM Compiler Engineer

Before you read the details of this role, there’s something you should know. At Matter Labs, we don’t see ourselves as a company, but as a highly aligned global team on a single mission: to accelerate the mass adoption of crypto for personal sovereignty. 

Our core technology – zkSync Era – is a layer 2 rollup that uses advanced cryptography called zero-knowledge proofs to scale Ethereum without compromising on security or decentralization. zkSync Era is EVM compatible, which means projects on Ethereum and other EVM-based blockchains can easily deploy on zkSync Era to take advantage of low gas fees and high transaction speeds.

With a total of $458 million in mission-driven funding, zkSync Era is the first EVM-compatible ZK Rollup to go live on testnet (February 2022) and be deployed on mainnet (October 2022). As we enter the endgame for Ethereum scaling, we are committed to full open source and building in public toward our stated mission [so that even if we fail, the community and the ecosystem will benefit from our contribution].

Read more about our core values and principles. 

Nowadays typical compilers for smart contracts are usually written from scratch. That means reinventing the wheels, poor optimization pipeline, lack of tools, etc. We aim to resolve that issue and deliver product-quality toolchains and a better development experience to our customers. That’s why we use LLVM, follow LLVM development practices, and upstream our fixes. In particular, we generally strongly prefer to reuse well-written and decently tested code.

You will be responsible for implementing our LLVM-based compilers from Solidity, Vyper, Zinc, and other languages to our zkEVM. We are working primarily with C++ (the LLVM part) and Rust (the front-end part). 

We expect you to independently conduct research in your area of ownership, design, implement, and document solutions.

What You'll Be Doing

• zkEVM back-end migration to the latest version of the ISA
• Back-end optimizations - better selection patterns, better ISA utilization, and peephole passes
• Optimizer tuning - zkEVM is different from a typical LLVM target, so passes like instruction combiner needs to be configured, and the pipeline itself needs to be tweaked
• Front-end optimizations - our front-ends currently produce correct IR, but it lacks attributes and metadata that would make analyses and transformations more efficient
• Debug information and debugger support
• Profiler support
• Binary format development and linker integration - we currently use a custom linker written in Rust and want to migrate to LLVM one day

What We Look For in You

• You are driven by passion, curiosity, and desire to make a meaningful contribution to the world
• Experience with compiler/toolchain development using LLVM framework
• Fluency in C++, at least 3+ years of experience
• Good understanding of computer architecture and ability to work with machine-level representation of a program
• Deep understanding of software engineering best-practices
• Ownership mindset and a track record of successfully accomplished projects
• Fluent written and spoken English
• Knowledge of common algorithms, data structures, and their computational and memory complexities is critical, as well as experience of implementing them from scratch

At Matter Labs, you have the freedom to work how you want, when you want, and from where you want. We operate in small, focused teams, with no time tracking and minimum bureaucracy. Only results matter. We will provide you with anything you need to learn, grow, and be productive.

Our results-only environment means anyone who believes in our mission can join us, regardless of background, sexual orientation, race, gender, and age. Both our team and community are made up of people from different countries, cultures, ethnical and religious backgrounds. That's why, out of politeness and respect, we refrain from opinions on politics, religion, or sex at the workplace. 

We designed our culture of freedom and ownership to persist as we scale and to establish the base for a positive-sum community as we move toward full decentralization.

Apply now if this role sounds of interest and we aim to get back to you as soon as possible.