Research Cryptographer & Mathematician

Research Cryptographer & Mathematician

Employment type: Full-time/Company: Heliax

Heliax is a remote-first company that researches, develops, deploys, and maintains open-source protocols and mechanisms to serve everyday needs. Their work includes Anoma (an intent-centric distributed operating system architecture) and Namada, a privacy-focused proof-of-stake L1 for interchain asset-agnostic privacy.

Applicants must be based in Europe (including the UK) and willing to travel to Berlin for initial onboarding.

Responsibilities:

- Design new cryptographic protocols (e.g. shielded state sync) to meet specified information flow, security, and performance goals.
- Evaluate and analyze existing cryptographic protocols and proof systems (e.g. zkSNARKs, zkSTARKs, Halo2, ProtoStar, Risc0 zkVM) for security, expressivity, and performance.
- Update, reimplement, and combine cryptographic protocols, customizing them for proofs-of-concept and production use-cases.
- Produce comprehensive technical specifications for cryptographic designs and collaborate with engineers on implementations.
- Implement, review, and test cryptographic operations and protocols, primarily in Rust, and evaluate implementations for correctness and performance.

Requirements:

- Mathematical and/or cryptographic background in relevant subfields (complexity theory, abstract algebra, cryptographic protocol design).
- Expertise (formal or informal) in constructive protocol design and analysis of distributed cryptographic protocols.

Nice to have:

- Published papers in mathematics, theoretical CS, and/or cryptography.
- Experience with distributed systems and/or operating systems architecture/design.
- Experience with Zerocash/Zexe/VeriZexe and related architectures.
- Academic qualifications in a relevant field (cryptography or mathematics).

Stack:

Rust, zkSNARKs, zkSTARKs, Halo2, ProtoStar, Risc0 zkVM, Arkworks, elliptic curves, hash functions, DKG, threshold encryption

Benefits:

- Relocation and visa assistance for Germany.
- High degree of independence in working conditions and task prioritization.
- Work closely with a small cross-disciplinary team on research-led projects.
- Opportunity for travel, including initial onboarding in Berlin.

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