Senior Cryptography Engineer

What We're Building

ZK proofs are one of the most critical technologies to blockchain scaling, interoperability and privacy, but are too complex for most developers today. Succinct’s mission is to make zero knowledge proofs accessible to any developer.

SP1 is a state of the art zkVM with performance that rivals custom ZK circuits that lets developers use ZK with normal programming languages, like Rust. The Succinct Prover Network, under active development, is a hosted infrastructure layer for any application to outsource proof-generation for open-source proof systems.

Today, top teams in the space, including Celestia, Wormhole, Lido, Avail, Near, and Gnosis are using Succinct’s infrastructure to build with ZKPs. We have a track record of shipping excellent products and cutting-edge technical work in ZK and have significant revenue from our customers.

We recently announced our $55 million raise across our Seed and Series A led by Paradigm, the best investor in crypto. Our team is still small but incredibly strong, and we are looking for exceptional people who are excited to work hard on challenging and impactful problems in a fast-paced environment. Our office is located in San Francisco and we have a strong preference for candidates based there for this role, but are open to exceptional remote candidates.

The Role

We are looking for an experienced cryptography research engineer to join our team to continually improve SP1 and maintain its position as the most performant zkVM. In this role you will:

• Identify and improve any performance bottlenecks in SP1 (at the software or proof system level)

• Design new algorithms and arguments at the proof system level that improve performance

• Keep up to date with the latest advances in proof systems (reading papers) and analyze their tradeoffs with SP1 in mind.

You will spend some of your time reading the latest research and producing new research, and some time coding and prototyping ideas alongside the rest of the ZK team. We are looking for someone with a deep understanding of cryptography as well as sufficient coding ability. Check out SP1 here: https://github.com/succinctlabs/sp1

Qualifications

• Prior experience developing ZK proving systems and/or zkVMs

• Very strong mathematical and cryptography background and deep knowledge of different proof system families (especially STARKs/FRI)

• At least basic familiarity with Rust and/or another programming language used in implementation of new ZK proving systems

• Ownership mindset 

• Strong communication and collaboration skills

Nice to have

• Familiarity with optimized systems programming and VMs

• Strong grasp of Rust

Location

Everyone on our team is located in San Francisco and works together in-person. Ideally, we’re looking for someone who enjoys in-person work and is already in San Francisco or willing to relocate (we can cover relocation costs). For senior candidates who are an exceptional fit, we’d consider a remote position as long as you’re available to onboard in-person for the first few months.

Benefits

• Above-market salary and generous equity compensation

• Health, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their dependents

• Lunch and dinner provided at the office

• Optional, company-paid travel to events and conferences

Even if the listed qualifications don't seem like an exact match, passionate and enthusiastic people who love to quickly learn are always welcome! Feel free to reach out or apply regardless and we would love to chat.