FPGA Developer

Come join Ulvetanna as we accelerate the ZK revolution by supporting web3 networks with reliable and cost-efficient proof generation. We’re a high-performance cryptography startup (with an exciting hardware twist) looking for a talented FPGA Developer. 

A more technical description of what we do is below! 

What will you do: 

As a Platforms FPGA Developer, you will work on the next-generation FPGA platforms to revolutionize ZKP acceleration. You will also take care of the PCIe, Network, HBM and other FPGA peripherals. You will work closely with our engineering managers to deploy FPGA products across Ulvetanna’s data centers. In this way, you will contribute to maximizing FPGA products' efficiency and performance.

About you: 

You're a clear communicator and a dedicated team player. You take initiative and can handle ambiguity, working in a fully remote startup setting. Preferably, you already have some knowledge and interest in the ZKP space. You are experienced in performance optimization and hardware design. If you have FPGA platforms and hardware acceleration experience, we would love to hear from you! 

Apply if you have: 

• A deep passion for technology, software, and hardware development

• Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering or equivalent field of study

• Experienced and well-versed in SystemVerilog

• Experience in the majority of the following areas: Hardware Architecture, RTL Coding, Simulation, Systems Integration, Hardware Validation and Testing, FPGA Synthesis, and Static Timing Analysis

• Xilinx US+ PCIe/QDMA and Aurora/100GbE subsystems expertise

• Sound understanding of technology tradeoffs and a pragmatic approach to problem-solving

• Strong written and verbal communication skills

Extra Qualifications:

• Experienced and well-versed in Linux, Python, C, Tcl, and bash

• MSc or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering or equivalent field of study

• HLS flow

• HW CI/CD flow

• cocotb simulation framework experience

• Embedded Processors (ARM, RiscV) experience

• GPU or ASIC design experience

• Experience with Xilinx ACAP chips

• High Speed Communication Interfaces and protocols (SerDes, Xilinx Aurora, Ethernet)

• AXI-4 Stream protocol expertise

• Xilinx DSP and HBM primitives expertise

About us (deep dive):

We're building out a high-performance, cost-efficient compute stack for advanced cryptographic proofs, specifically zk-SNARKs. Verifiable computing with zk-SNARKs is taking off as a solution to the scalability and privacy limitations that today's blockchains suffer from. A new wave of blockchain protocols that use zk-SNARKs to prove smart contract executions, such as Polygon zkEVM, Starknet, and zkSync, are already in production. We believe there is a big market opportunity to generate proofs for these networks at scale in a cost-effective way [1]. There are lots of interesting performance engineering challenges we need to solve to keep up with the maximum device throughput. 

We take the approach of co-designing hardware and software systems to accelerate SNARK generation end-to-end. Our first-generation tech stack uses FPGA accelerators running custom digital logic tailor-made for our use case [2]. We also conduct cryptography research to identify computationally efficient algorithms for verifiable computing. These research efforts produced a novel cryptographic construction based on towers of binary fields called Binius [3], which we are currently developing into a production-grade system. Our team has cross-domain expertise and includes hardware designers, low-level systems software engineers, cryptography engineers, and data center specialists, several of whom worked in HFT previously.

[1] https://www.paradigm.xyz/2022/04/zk-hardware

[2] https://www.ulvetanna.io/news/fpga-architecture-for-goldilocks-ntt

[3] https://www.ulvetanna.io/news/binius-hardware-optimized-snark

[4] https://www.ulvetanna.io/news/introducing-ulvetanna

Locations supported: 

We’re looking for candidates who are located between the USA East Coast and Central Europe time zones. Although we’re a globally distributed company, ensuring the leadership team works in cohesive time zones is essential to our goals. Additionally, the company plans to get together ~one week per quarter at our New York City office.

NOTE: We can not sponsor visas of any kind at this time.

We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace where talented individuals can thrive and grow. We value the different perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds that each person brings to our team. Even if you don't fit 100% of the job's necessary qualifications, we'd still love to hear from you.

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