Formal Methods / Verification - Engineer

Blockswap is a middle layer for Web3 multichain composability.

We Blockswap Labs is a major contributor to the Blockswap Network, building a suite of products to support the Multichain composability for staked ETH. Our team is one of the most impactful and knowledgeable in Cross-chain Communication. We are a very diverse, globally distributed team.

The company was founded by leading cross-chain specialists and DeFi engineers. We are a small team crushing the scene with a passion for DAO, DeFi, and NFT and a relentless commitment to extending crypto benefits to mainstream everyday users.

Our anchor product is Stakehouse championing Multichain ETH, enabling anyone from anywhere to have a permissionless ETH stake yield on DeFi and a key proponent of the Rollup-centric future of Ethereum. We have a laser focus on last-mile user onboarding, and our ecosystem has been growing from strength to strength.

About the role

We are looking for a Software Engineer - Formal Methods / Verification to join our Engineering team. The candidate shall have previous verification experience, academic, industrial, or both—knowledge of formal semantics and formal verification.

You will be involved in Protocol design reviews by formalizing architecture and their reasoning; you are the interface between development engineers and the Formal Verification and Security team. You will produce formal specifications for Blockswap protocols, iteratively refining specifications, modeling, and proving them using formal frameworks and tools.

Requirements:

• Experience in formal methods or tools, e.g., proof assistants, interactive/automated theorem provers, model checking, deductive verification, etc.
• Experience with unit testing, documentation, design, and code reviews with strong mathematical and logical thinking skills.
• Good written communication skills and ability to write and understand the mathematical notation
• Knowledge of mathematical proof methods (induction, contradiction, exhaustion, probabilistic proofs)
• Basic secure software pattern and smart contract vulnerability knowledge (Reentries, invariants, etc.)
• Industrial experience in formally verifying real-world systems.
• Strong reasoning skills and Excellent English communication skills.

Responsibilities

• You will design formal methods that define the correctness of smart contracts logic that helps to review and identify security issues and bugs in our protocols.
• Write (semi-)formal specifications and turn them into high-quality executable, verifiable, and verified code.
• Extend the scope and depth of our protocol specifications using formal proofs and verification tools such as Certora Prover.
• Identify security properties of smart protocol contracts and formalize properties and invariants for use in our automated verification tools.
• Closely collaborate with our software engineers to solve development/pre-deployment problems and address them.
• You will have the opportunity to work on all stages of next-generation DeFi, ZK, and Metaverse protocol development, from the initial design reviews to production implementation.
• Our team is highly supportive and collaborative, with great opportunities to learn and grow.

Required Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in Computer Science or a related field.
• Minimum of 2 years of experience with model checking, formal verification, SAT/SMT solving, abstract interpretation, or closely related disciplines.
• Demonstrated knowledge of fundamental computers science concepts such as data structures, algorithms, mathematical logic, and automata theory.
• Ability to deliver high-quality code and ensure it through various testing techniques (e.g., property-based testing);

Nice to have:

• Experience with formal verification tools (K, Certora, etc.)
• Knowledge of basic financial primitives (Stocks, Bonds, Interest rates, etc.)
• Previous experience in DeFi protocol verification
• Experience in – networking, distributed systems, programming language design, and blockchain applications – would be a bonus.
• Demonstrated ability to work on complex problems in a self-driven way.

Ideal profile

Background in programming language theory and automated reasoning and love to work with a web3 product development team applying results from theoretical computer science.

You love to solve challenging problems and have a proven track record of achieving results. You are collaborative, love to brainstorm with peers, and give and receive feedback. You are comfortable with the unknown and understand that #startuplife means you will wear multiple hats.

Blockswap is committed to diversity in its workforce and is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We embrace all qualified persons to apply and will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please feel free to let us know.