| Job Position | Company | Posted | Location | Salary | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Logos | Madrid, Spain | $90k - $190k | |||
Namada | Remote |
| |||
Ethereum Foundation | Remote |
| |||
Polygon Labs | United States | $33k - $75k | |||
| Learn job-ready web3 skills on your schedule with 1-on-1 support & get a job, or your money back. | | by Metana Bootcamp Info | |||
Matter Labs | Remote | $72k - $115k | |||
Polygon Labs | Remote | $31k - $58k | |||
Polygon Labs | Japan | $31k - $58k | |||
Polygon Labs | APAC | $72k - $102k | |||
Polygon Labs | Dubai, United Arab Emirates | $140k - $144k | |||
Matter Labs | Remote | $89k - $102k | |||
Coinmarketcap | Remote | $89k - $102k | |||
Penumbra Labs | San Francisco, CA, United States | $63k - $112k | |||
Aztec | Remote | $72k - $112k | |||
Polygon Labs | Europe | $87k - $110k | |||
Matter Labs | London, United Kingdom | $72k - $102k |
Who are we
Vac builds public good protocols for the decentralized web.
We do applied research based on which we build protocols, libraries and publications. Custodians of protocols that reflect a set of principles - liberty, privacy, etc.
You can see a sample of some of our work here: Vac, Waku v2 and Ethereum Messaging, Privacy-preserving p2p economic spam protection in Waku v2, Waku v2 RFC. Our attitude towards ZK: Vac <3 ZK.
The role
This role will be part of a new team that will make a provable and private WASM engine that runs everywhere. As a research engineer, you will be responsible for researching, designing, analyzing and implementing circuits that allow for proving private computation of execution in WASM. This includes having a deep understanding of relevant ZK proof systems and tooling (zk-SNARK, Circom, Plonk/Halo 2, zk-STARK, etc), as well as different architectures (zk-EVM Community Effort, Polygon Hermez and similar) and their trade-offs. You will collaborate with the Vac Research team, and work with requirements from our new Logos program. As one of the first hires of a greenfield project, you are expected to take on significant responsibility, while collaborating with other research engineers, including compiler engineers and senior Rust engineers.
Key responsibilities
- Research, analyze and design proof systems and architectures for private computation
- Be familiar and adapt to research needs zero-knowledge circuits written in Rust Design and implement zero-knowledge circuits in Rust
- Write specifications and communicate research findings through write-ups
- Break down complex problems, and know what can and what can’t be dealt with later
- Perform security analysis, measure performance of and debug circuits
You ideally will have
- Very strong academic or engineering background (PhD-level or equivalent in industry); relevant research experience
- Experience with low level/strongly typed languages (C/C++/Go/Rust or Java/C#)
- Experience with Open Source software
- Deep understanding of Zero-Knowledge proof systems (zk-SNARK, circom, Plonk/Halo2, zk-STARK), elliptic curve cryptography, and circuit design
- Keen communicator, eager to share your work in a wide variety of contexts, like internal and public presentations, blog posts and academic papers.
- Experience in, and passion for, blockchain technology.
- A strong alignment to our principles: https://status.im/about/#our-principles
Bonus points if
- Experience in provable and/or private computation (zkEVM, other ZK VM)
- Rust Zero Knowledge tooling
- Experience with WebAssemblyWASM
[Don’t worry if you don’t meet all of these criteria, we’d still love to hear from you anyway if you think you’d be a great fit for this role. Just explain to us why in your cover letter].
Hiring process
The hiring process for this role will be:
- Interview with our POps team
- Interview with team member from the Vac team
- Pair programming task with the Vac team
- Interview withVac team lead
The steps may change along the way if we see it makes sense to adapt the interview stages, so please consider the above as a guideline.
Compensation
The expected compensation range for this role is $90,000 - $190,000 (negotiable, dependent on how we assess your skills and experience throughout our interview process. We are happy to pay in any mix of fiat/crypto.
What is Zero-knowledge?
Zero-knowledge is a concept in cryptography that allows two parties to exchange information without revealing any additional information beyond what is necessary to prove a particular fact
In other words, zero-knowledge is a way of proving something without actually revealing any details about the proof
Here are some examples of zero-knowledge:
- Password authentication: When you enter your password to log into an online account, the server doesn't actually know your password. Instead, it checks to see if the hash of your password matches the stored hash in its database. This is a form of zero-knowledge because the server doesn't know your actual password, just the hash that proves you know the correct password.
- Sudoku puzzles: Suppose you want to prove to someone that you've solved a particularly difficult Sudoku puzzle. You could do this by providing them with the completed puzzle, but that would reveal how you solved it. Instead, you could use a zero-knowledge proof where you demonstrate that you know the solution without actually revealing the solution itself.
- Bitcoin transactions: In a Bitcoin transaction, you prove that you have ownership of a certain amount of Bitcoin without revealing your private key. This is done using a zero-knowledge proof called a Schnorr signature, which allows you to prove ownership of a specific transaction output without revealing the private key associated with that output.
- Secure messaging: In a secure messaging app, you can prove to your contacts that you have access to a shared secret without revealing the secret itself. This is done using a zero-knowledge proof, which allows you to prove that you have access to the secret without actually revealing what the secret is.