Researcher/Engineer (Formal Verification)

Researcher/Engineer (Formal Verification)

Remote (Global)

Ethereum Foundation – Protocol Snarkification /

Full-time /

Remote

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Role summary

As a member of the Protocol Snarkification team, you will work towards snarkifying Ethereum by working to specify and verify the core cryptographic components of proof systems and their implementation in the Ethereum ecosystem.

About the Ethereum Foundation

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) is a global non-profit organization dedicated to assisting the Ethereum ecosystem in realizing the potential of Ethereum as an open, neutral infrastructure for the world. In practice, we dynamically allocate resources to critical projects when needed and step back when others can take the lead.

About the team

The Protocol Snarkification team's mission is to help integrate cryptographic proof systems into the core of Ethereum, with a particular focus on specifying and verifying the cryptographic protocols and their implementation. This is a research-oriented team that sits alongside other Protocols teams (particularly the Cryptography and zkEVM teams), working towards Ethereum’s snarkification, and which is intended to remain flexible to the needs of Ethereum’s development whilst improving the way that high assurance cryptography is delivered in the Ethereum ecosystem.

The team currently oversees the zkEVM formal verification project, which includes the formal verification of zkVM circuits, the development of formally verified executable specifications of proof systems, and the verification of implementations against these specifications. Many aspects of this work are representative of this team’s interests; for example, formalization of cryptography in Lean and (Lean-)MLIR for cryptography.

Key responsibilities

Key responsibilities would include a subset of the following, depending on your specific interests and expertise.

- Formalize cryptography that is used in Ethereum. This includes developing new specifications, maintaining libraries such as ArkLib, and working with external collaborators to verify optimizations and other implementation details which are used in practice.

- Investigate the development and verification of MLIR dialects for cryptography and zkVMs.

- Improvements to tooling and the use of AI for the above.

- Assist the zkEVM Formal Verification effort.

- Collaborate with other teams at the EF (e.g. Cryptography, zkEVM).

- Stay at the forefront of relevant developments in cryptography, implementations, and formal verification.

- Document and communicate your work, and contribute to the broader high assurance cryptography ecosystem.

Required skills and/or experience

• Relevant academic and/or professional background. You should be able to evidence skills related to your future work at the EF; in particular, practical knowledge of cryptography and/or the implementation stack, as well as proof assistants (Lean is preferred) and other formal verification tools applied to cryptography. Past contributions to open source projects is a plus.
• Curiosity and a willingness to keep learning.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills. You should be able to communicate and collaborate with other teams at the EF as well as with external organisations.
• The ability to work effectively as part of a team in a fully remote, distributed and asynchronous organization.
• Interest in and familiarity with Ethereum as a whole. Although you might not work across the entire Ethereum stack, you should not feel like a fish out of water at Ethereum events.

Logistics

This is a fully remote full-time position. Specific location and hours are flexible, but overlapping availability with Western Europe is a plus, particularly around “Eth o’clock” (14:00 UTC).

Willingness to travel is not a strict requirement, but you’ll likely benefit from being able to occasionally travel to events related to your work.

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