Rust Cryptography Engineer — Autheo | Post-Quantum Signatures, ZK Verification & TheoID on Live Mainnet

Launch Legends • Cheyenne, WY

1d • Remote

About The Position

Autheo is recruiting an applied cryptography engineer to write production Rust for its live blockchain, focusing on post-quantum cryptography, zero-knowledge verification, and TheoID, its sovereign identity system for people, services, and AI agents. The role involves implementing cryptography against specifications and test vectors rather than only integrating existing libraries. It is a hands-on, part-time equity/token-based cofounder position, with ownership of a technical surface and responsibility for writing and reviewing code. The commitment is at least 20 hours per week; there is no cash salary currently.

The engineer will integrate post-quantum primitives such as ML-KEM and ML-DSA, evaluate Falcon and SLH-DSA, and plan migration details for a live chain, including hybrid signatures, key and address formats, and impacts on block and transaction sizes. The role also covers zero-knowledge proof verification, TheoID key management and recovery, Marketplace metadata encryption boundaries, threat modeling, performance benchmarking, and cross-architecture testing. Autheo Mainnet launched May 14, 2026.

Compensation includes equity in Launch Legends, Autheo, and the WFO Creator Network, as well as token allocations in the Autheo blockchain. THEO is already trading. The organization is remote, with direct access to engineering leads and Managing Directors.

Requirements

• Public Rust cryptography code the applicant personally wrote, demonstrated through a GitHub or GitLab profile, crates.io crate, merged pull requests to a cryptography library, or a published paper with a Rust implementation. Applications without a link to personally authored Rust code will not be reviewed.
• Production Rust knowledge, including ownership, lifetimes, traits and generics over field or curve types, no_std awareness, and safe handling of secret material.
• Experience implementing at least one cryptographic scheme from a specification or paper and validating it against test vectors; applicants must identify the scheme.
• Working knowledge of at least one of: lattice-based post-quantum cryptography (ML-KEM, ML-DSA, or Falcon), hash-based signatures, SNARK/STARK proving systems, or elliptic-curve signatures and aggregation (Ed25519, BLS, or Schnorr/FROST).
• Ability to explain side-channel, nonce-misuse, and malleability risks in code the applicant has shipped.

Nice To Haves

• Contributions to RustCrypto, dalek-cryptography, arkworks, Plonky2/Plonky3, halo2, RISC Zero, SP1, zkcrypto, Penumbra, Zcash, or a comparable project.
• Audit experience, either writing findings or fixing them.
• Experience with formal methods, fuzzing (cargo-fuzz or libFuzzer), or differential testing against a reference implementation.
• A PhD or published cryptography research.

Responsibilities

• Integrate ML-KEM and ML-DSA behind versioned Rust interfaces for the node, TheoID, and SDKs, and evaluate Falcon and SLH-DSA.
• Plan the post-quantum migration for a live chain, including hybrid classical and post-quantum signatures, key and address formats, signature-size impacts, and rollout.
• Implement constant-time code and zeroization, and add fuzzing and known-answer tests using NIST vectors.
• Build or integrate zero-knowledge proof-verification libraries for the runtime; identify the proving system and measure proof size and verification time.
• Assess appropriate zero-knowledge use cases, including TheoID selective disclosure, Marketplace job attestation, and bridge proofs, and document where ZK is not useful.
• Handle TheoID key rotation and recovery and define field-level encryption boundaries for Marketplace metadata.
• Write a threat model for each shipped surface and review it with security.
• Work with external auditors, including Halborn, CertiK, and Adevar Labs.
• Add CI benchmarks for signing, verification, encapsulation, and proving and verification paths.
• Run cross-architecture tests for x86_64, aarch64, and wasm32 where applicable.
• Review cryptography that is live versus planned and agree on a recommended post-quantum migration path with protocol and security teams.
• Integrate one post-quantum signature or KEM path behind a versioned interface, test it against NIST known-answer tests, fuzz it, and benchmark it in CI.
• Produce a design note for one zero-knowledge verification use case, naming a proving system and measuring costs.
• Write and review production Rust code and take ownership of a technical surface.

Benefits

• Equity in Launch Legends, Autheo, and the WFO Creator Network.
• Token allocations in the Autheo blockchain, including an allocation in the already-trading THEO utility token.
• Remote work and direct access to engineering leads and Managing Directors.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Part-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed