Research Cryptographer, FHE
About Heliax
Heliax is a remote-first public goods lab which researches, develops, deploys, and maintains open-source protocols & mechanisms designed to serve the everyday needs of humanity. Using this, we build vertically integrated open-source products and networks that form coherent open systems which are capable of acting as an alternative to existing exploitative paradigms. With team 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.
Heliax’ work include the Anoma protocol, a novel architecture for blockchains that enables a declarative paradigm for decentralized applications; Namada, a proof-of-stake L1 for interchain asset-agnostic privacy; Juvix and Vamp-IR, in the domain of languages for dApps and ZK circuits.
Overview
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 🏔️.