Head of Protocol

Tools For Humanity•San Francisco, CA

7d•Onsite

About The Position

World is building a real human network designed to accelerate people in the age of AI. As bots and autonomous agents reshape the internet, people, institutions, and applications need a trusted way to confirm who is a real human while preserving privacy. Our products make this possible: the Orb verifies real people, World ID proves it privately, and World App enables and distributes the new applications made possible by this technology. Together, they form a new layer for AI internet. We're one of the fastest-growing networks in tech. More than 17 million people across 160 countries have verified with World ID, and we complete over 350,000 verifications each week. World App is already among the most used wallets globally. Developers are integrating World ID to build safer online experiences and create spaces where real people can participate, earn, and be recognized in ways AI simply can't replicate. World was founded in 2019 and launched globally in 2023. We are more than 400 people across hardware, software, AI, cryptography, mobile engineering, and global operations. Our teams come from OpenAI, Tesla, SpaceX, Apple, Google, Stripe, Meta, Coinbase, Palantir and MIT Media Lab. We're backed by leading investors, including a16z, Khosla Ventures, Bain Capital Crypto, Blockchain Capital, Variant, Tiger Global, and Coinbase Ventures, as well as prominent operators and founders across fintech and AI. World has been featured on the cover of TIME Magazine , highlighted in Fast Company's Next 5 in Fintech, and explored in a Bloomberg deep dive . The New York Times , Bankless and TechCrunch have all recognized our progress in identity, cryptography, AI, and global-scale hardware deployment. Our leadership is also named to the Time AI 100 . Learn more about the newest product launches from our Unwrapped event. As the Head of Protocol you own the architecture and evolution of World Protocol so it can privately verify unique humans and move value at global scale. Deliver a credible path from today's OP-Stack/Superchain Ethereum rollup with early AMPC to a decentralized, internet-scale protocol that verifies unique humans privately and moves value at low, predictable cost across ecosystems, all at minimal latency that feel instant for everyday users. You will set the long-term architectural roadmap of the protocol and lead the team that ships it. Based in San Francisco, in office, reports to the CEO.

Requirements

Ability to attract, hire, manage and grow senior engineers; operate hands-on and write crisp design docs
Excellent written communication and public technical presence.

Nice To Haves

Proven protocol architecture at L1/L2 or equivalent core distributed systems work at scale.
Deep ZK literacy and Ethereum/rollup stack expertise.
Track record shipping audited, upgradeable on-chain systems with clear SLOs and dashboards.
Device attestation or secure hardware integration.
EIP or standards authorship; multi-client experience.
Prior leadership of an open protocol community.

Responsibilities

Deliver great capacity and exceptional UX: Improve World Chain block execution throughput to 100M gas per second and shorten block confirmation time so transactions are executed in a few seconds on average at predictable low fees.
Make AMPC production-ready so uniqueness checks stay fast and reliable under surge. Publish simple public SLOs and dashboards so developers see inclusion, backlog, and cost clearly.
10-year architecture roadmap: Codify a durable plan from today's OP Stack baseline to the end-state protocol at global scale. Make crisp calls on validity proof, data availability, state growth, and sequencer design/strategy, with the why captured in ADRs and a staged migration plan. Prove the path with a public testnet and a safe, reversible mainnet cutover plan.
Decentralization: Design a credible decentralized sequencer strategy with automatic failover and a clear path to permissionless entry. Distribute AMPC and other critical services across independent operators with SLAs, telemetry, and third-party reviews. Align fees and incentives, including World ID Fees , so neutral parties can run core infrastructure sustainably.
Interoperability and DevX: Ship SDKs for e.g. uniqueness and credential attestations that let developers integrate once and run across EVM, mobile, and at least one non-EVM stack. Keep APIs stable and deterministic so reads and writes behave the same under load. Provide reference apps and tests so first integrations land the same day and stay fast as usage ramps.
Team and technical visibility: Build a senior, co-located SF team across protocol, ZK, security, and infra, and hire 8-12 exceptional ICs with clear bars. Lead hands on with specs, code reviews, on-call, and a cadence of capacity reviews, chaos drills, and postmortems. Publish research and standards work so the protocol's direction is legible to partners and the community.