Web 3.0 Technologies Foundation

The Web3 Foundation nurtures and stewards technologies and applications for the decentralized web. We collaborate with cutting-edge developer teams, researchers and community leaders to strengthen and extend the uses of decentralized technologies; building the future of identity, privacy, financial markets, commerce, and more.

Our core project at the moment is Polkadot, a protocol designed to connect blockchains and allow them to interoperate, share security and more. In addition, we are supporting the development of a number of technologies that form the Web 3.0 tech stack - such as decentralized messaging, distributed storage and secret management.

We are a lean team with a flat organization. This position is based in Zug, Switzerland but we would consider remote (EU) working for outstanding candidates.

Formal Verification Research Engineer Role

As part of our research team, we are looking for a formal verification enthusiast who would be eager to strategize and lead our endeavor of bringing practical formal verification to Polkadot.

Apart from the in-house efforts within W3F’s Security and Research Teams, there has already been quite an interest from the community to assist with the formal verification of our algorithms and protocols.

We are working on new algorithms for Polkadot and improving the current ones, we therefore need to ensure that they are secure and that no flow paths have been missed that could undermine protocol correctness. 

Responsibilities

• Conduct formal verification proofs on key algorithms and protocols designed by the Web3 Foundation Research Team for the Polkadot system
• Conduct research on formally verifying software updates for Polkadot
• Liaise with external formal verification teams to guide their efforts on related projects
• Support internal Grants team for any formal verification applications. For example, by helping them scope and evaluate deliverables

Requirements 

• Masters in Computer Science or similar
• Solid background in formal methods and program verification
• Extensive experience with formal verification frameworks, e.g. TLA+, Coq, and functional programming languages, e.g. Haskell 
• Familiar with formal specification and verification of distributed and decentralized systems
• Approachable personality and clear communication style in English
• Demonstrated ability to manage relationships with many external parties

A plus

• PhD in Computer Science or similar with a focus on formal verification
• Experience with Substrate or Wasm
• Experience and proficiency in other languages such as JavaScript, C, C++
• CI & Automation tools
• Experience or willingness to learn rust

Benefits 

• Competitive compensation and employee benefits
• Regular company retreats at unique locations located around Europe
• Opportunity to work in a multinational, high-performance team with diverse backgrounds (i.e. physics, computer science, machine-learning algorithm design, legal, financial products, management consulting, marketing & advertising, etc.)

To apply to this position, we ask you to answer a few questions in the application form, and to submit your CV and a cover letter, telling us a bit about yourself and your motivation to join us.

For more details on the above algorithms and an overview of other ongoing work at the Web3 Foundation Research Team see: https://research.web3.foundation/en/latest/polkadot/protocols.html.

For more information about us, visit us on the:

• Web3 Foundation website: https://web3.foundation/ 
• Polkadot website: https://polkadot.network/ 
• Github: https://github.com/w3f/