Staff Cryptography Engineer (Rust)
Staff Cryptography Engineer (Rust)
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Job Description
Irreducible is a team of innovators pushing the boundaries of cryptographic computing. Join us as we accelerate the ZK revolution by supporting web3 networks with the worlds fastest most reliable and cost-efficient proof generation through cryptographic software and hardware codesign. We challenge conventional wisdom simplify complexity and execute with precision to build category-defining technology. As we continue to scale we are looking for a talented Rust Engineer to join our Cryptography team in Berlin.
Role Overview
Youll be expected to operate with high autonomy owning technical execution and collaborating across research and hardware teams to ensure clean abstractions efficient memory layouts and robust edge-case handling. The ideal candidate is not only capable of identifying implementation gaps but also energized by filling them.
Being a self-starter is essential as there are always a variety of challenges that need to be tackled. Your work will have a direct impact on our growth and success. At the Staff or Principal level there will also be an expectation to mentor and guide engineers across the team providing leadership in Rust development practices code reviews and architecture. As a Staff or Principal Engineer youll not only help shape our technical direction but also support the growth of the team by sharing knowledge offering guidance on complex challenges and fostering a culture of learning and collaboration.
Locations Supported
In-person in Berlin Germany: We are excited to support relocation for candidates interested in working in-person 3 days a week from our Mitte Berlin office.
Visa sponsorship: We do sponsor visas for this role. However we arent able to successfully sponsor visas for every candidate. But if we make you an offer we will make every reasonable effort to get you a visa but we cant make any guarantees.
Remote: We are open to candidates who are located between the USA East Coast and Central Europe time zones. Well expect you to come to the office approximately once per quarter for 1-2 weeks for company on-sites and/or team sprints. Please note: we are more selective for fully remote candidates.
We have a globally distributed company and ensuring the team works in a cohesive way is our main goal.
Necessary Qualifications
Significant professional Rust experience
Experience implementing cryptographic protocols
Familiarity with zero-knowledge cryptography concepts
Experience with performance tuning and working with a research team on optimization
Understanding of software engineering best practices especially testing
Mathematical aptitude
Familiarity with software design patterns
Ability to think across layers of abstractions
Understanding of technology tradeoffs and a pragmatic approach to problem solving
Bonus Qualifications
Experience modifying and contributing to open-source codebases
Competitive programming experience
Understanding of fundamental blockchain concepts
Ability to read and understand cryptography research
Experience with purely functional or logic programming languages
Experience with ZK circuit programming
Mentor and guide engineers across the team providing leadership in Rust development practices code reviews and architecture
About Us (deep dive)
Were building out a high-performance cost-efficient compute stack for advanced cryptographic proofs specifically zk-SNARKs. Verifiable computing with zk-SNARKs is taking off as a solution to the scalability and privacy limitations that todays blockchains suffer from. A new wave of blockchain protocols that use zk-SNARKs to prove smart contract executions such as Polygon zkEVM Starknet and zkSync are already in production. We believe there is a big market opportunity to generate proofs for these networks at scale in a cost-effective way 1. There are lots of interesting performance engineering challenges we need to solve to keep up with the maximum device throughput.
We take the approach of co-designing hardware and software systems to accelerate SNARK generation end-to-end. Our first-generation tech stack uses FPGA accelerators running custom digital logic tailor-made for our use case 2.
We also conduct cryptography research to identify computationally efficient algorithms for verifiable computing. These research efforts produced a novel cryptographic construction based on towers of binary fields called Binius 3 4 which we are currently developing into a production-grade system.
Our team has cross-domain expertise and includes hardware designers low-level systems software engineers cryptography engineers and data center specialists several of whom worked in HFT previously.
1 are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace where talented individuals can thrive and grow. We value the different perspectives experiences and backgrounds that each person brings to our team. Even if you dont fit 100% of the jobs necessary qualifications wed still love to hear from you.
To all recruitment agencies: Irreducible does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias Irreducible employees or any other organisation location. Irreducible is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes. Please read our full policy here.
Required Experience:
Staff IC
Employment Type
Full-Time
