Systems Software Engineer, Compiler/Virtual Machines - remote

Do you want to forever be known as a key part of the team that took decentralized finance (DeFi) mainstream –by finally delivering safe, approachable, parallelizable programming suitable for global finance on an open distributed ledger? DeFi has turned out to be the killer app that is taking public distributed ledgers (DLT) from niche products for speculators and hobbyists to projects of global economic significance. Value locked in DeFi applications has jumped over $12 billion in less than six months, but applications are running headlong into the limitations of unwieldy smart contract programming on a network that can only process a fraction of the transactional demand.

Radix is in the midst of creating a new model of end-user DLT development, one which avoids the gotchas of current smart contract development while enabling rapid implementation of practical finance applications. We are seeking an engineer with a strong background in compilers, virtual machines, and systems design to help shape and implement our approach from the ground up, starting with our unique finite state machine approach.

You’ll begin with a period of intense research and prototyping alongside folks who have years of experience thinking about the problem set, and then you’ll transition to working on the implementation of the programming and execution layer atop our existing network. Your brain will bend in ways it wasn’t meant to be bent, you will form lifelong bonds with a team of incredible people, and you will forever remember the journey.

About Us

We labor in the service of our great master, Cerberus. Cerberus is the first model of consensus that delivers high throughput via sharding without sacrificing the central need of decentralized finance—the ability to atomically perform transactions across disparate shards. We call him “Cerby”for short.

Though geographically diverse, we are an exceptionally close-knit team. We count on each other, and we take comfort in knowing the team is always there to step in and take up the load when we run into tough problems. A few times a year we all fly to an exotic destination for a week of planning, hacking, and festivities (except when driven underground by the covid beast). The anticipation leading up to these “Radix summits”is the adult version of looking forward to your favorite holiday.

Decentralized finance and Ethereum are groaning under the stress of too many users pounding square-peg needs into a round-hole platform. We went back to first principles to come up with the right solution, and we have already tested out at over 1 million transactions per second. We have forged a path deep into the future of what distributed ledger technology is going to look like, together with the business case that assures adoption, and we need you to come and be part of the team that is making that happen right now. Join us!

Requirements

About You

• You have a wealth of knowledge about lexical analysis, interpreters, compilers, and bytecode that you never get to use at parties.
• You deeply understand everything that happens between code written in text files to program execution for at least one high-level language.
• You’re familiar with the basis of some existing VM architectures, and can speak intelligently about the pros and cons of various design approaches.
• You have previously shipped production software, and understand the importance of timely solutions over academic elegance.

Preferred Qualifications and Competencies

• 4+ years as a professional software engineer.
• Strong debugging skills.
• Fluent in C.
• Familiarity with the underpinnings of LLVM and/or GCC is a plus.
• Familiarity with WASM is a plus.
• Solid understanding of computer architecture is a plus.