Research Cryptographer, FHE
- Heliax (Anoma)
Job Description
"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 🏔️.
Apply Now
Heliax is a R&D team focused on implementing cutting-edge research from numerous disciplines (distributed systems, PLT, zero-knowledge cryptography) and deploying them to solve hard problems in the blockchain space, such as scalability, high assurance smart contract and validity predicate languages, secure randomness or privacy. In addition to the open-source R&D areas, Heliax is expanding its focus towards mainstream end-users, with the goals of making financial sovereignty, privacy-enhancing, and secure technologies as accessible for as many people as possible.
The primary project of Heliax is the Anoma protocol, in addition to open-source projects for the Anoma ecosystem, which include cryptographic libraries such as the MASP or tools for high assurance validity predicates and arbitrary zero-knowledge circuits (Juvix).
Heliax is a remote-first team, currently composed of cross-disciplinary members located around the world. Our work culture is characterized by open-allocation, where team members have a high degree of freedom and autonomy in choosing when to work, what to work on, and whom to work with.