Remote Human-centric Protocol Engineer

Overview

We have an open position for a human-centric protocol engineer who can research, survey, design, and analyze protocols which fuse practical feasibility, cryptoeconomic security, and a deep consideration of the social and cultural contexts in which technology is used and how it affects the communities which make use of it. This role covers protocols from decentralised proof-of-humanity and decentralised UBI all the way to protocols for social key recovery and liquid democracy web-of-trust.

The primary project of Heliax is Anoma, a suite of protocols and mechanisms for self-contained self-sovereign coordination. Anoma includes a sovereign, proof-of-stake blockchain protocol that enables private, asset-agnostic cash and private bartering among any number of parties, an open-source smart contract and zero-knowledge circuit language supporting first-class formal verification, a heterogeneous consensus protocol which reifies the spectrum between sovereign and sharded security, and more. You will be working across, within, and above all of these protocols to ensure that the gestalt is in alignment with the strategic direction outlined in the Anoma vision paper of alleviating the abstractive deficit inherent in modern systems of economic interchange and providing communities the tools they need to opt out of systems which do not serve their best interests and opt in to ones which do.

Heliax is a remote-first team, currently composed of cross-disciplinary members located around the world. All of our work is open-source and benefits the public. 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.

Responsibilities

• Conduct research surveys of existing design approaches to protocols in the areas of human-centric interaction, e.g. decentralised proof-of-humanity, social key recovery, etc.
• Talk directly to involved communities “on the ground” who will be using these protocols on a day to day basis and determine if the designs satisfy their needs
• Evaluate deployed protocols and impacts thereof to assess whether protocols are serving the best interests of the communities using them
• Analyze protocols regarding properties such as practical feasibility, user-friendliness, security, privacy, and scalability
• Design protocols or alter protocols to satisfy desired properties 
• Fleshing out how protocols should be realized in practice
• Assist developers in implementations of protocols 

Qualifications

• Basic understanding of blockchain technologies, cryptographic technologies, and associated research principles
• Experience with protocol design either through published work in academia or through personal projects
• Background in some of the following fields: applied cryptography, economics, computer security, mathematics, art, social science
• Good communication skills (both written and verbal)

Bonus Qualifications

• Having been involved in a project all the way from design to implementation
• Coding skills are welcome (in particular Rust)
• Familiarity with software architecture

Misc

Competitive compensation in a negotiable mix of salary and equity. Remote or local (Zürich/Zug, Berlin). When remote, preferred if mostly located within (+/- 7 hours) Central European time zones. Ideally someone who enjoys nature and hiking 🏔️.