Formal Methods Engineer - Research

IO Global; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

IO Global is seeking a Formal Methods Engineer to bridge product development, architecture, and research. The role involves developing formal specifications, providing quality assurance during development, and enabling effective collaboration between teams. Candidates should have a strong background in computer science, functional programming, and formal methods, ensuring the successful integration of research into production systems. Join a diverse team committed to innovation and excellence in blockchain technology.

Benefits

New starter package for hardware essentials

Competitive PTO

Qualifications

• 2-3 years experience in a functional language, preferably Haskell.
• 2-3 years experience in a dependent-typed language, preferably Agda.
• Experience with formal methods and knowledge in blockchain applications.

Responsibilities

• Develop formal artifacts with performance models and simulations.
• Communicate feedback between researchers and developers.
• Participate in knowledge sharing through seminars and workshops.

Skills

Problem Solving

Deep Thinking

Collaboration

Education

Higher degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Git

Job description

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IOG, is a technology company focused on blockchain research and development. We are renowned for our scientific approach to blockchain development, emphasizing peer-reviewed research and formal methods to ensure security, scalability, and sustainability. Our projects include the Cardano blockchain, as well as other products in the areas of decentralized finance (DeFi), governance, and identity management, aiming to advance the capabilities and adoption of blockchain and Web3 technology globally.

What the role involves:

As a Formal Methods Engineer at IO you act as a bridge between product, research, architecture, and development. You will develop formal artifacts as early as possible in the development process that grow with the project and continue to provide impact throughout into the late stages. You will develop and iteratively refine specifications, working towards high quality designs, prototypes and practical implementations. Your work will form part of the day-to-day quality assurance of production system development. In some projects, critical steps will be tested, or proven using appropriate formal frameworks and tools. In other projects, the expected performance of the resulting system will be modeled, so that the impact of design decisions on performance and stability can be assessed early on. Based on this process, you will provide feedback to the researchers. Finally, based on their specifications, designs, simulations and/or prototypes, you will advise and assist other development teams to implement and integrate their work into production systems.

You will participate in knowledge sharing and continuous learning through interactions with Formal Methods Engineers across the company and more broadly with researchers and engineers as well.

• Build formal artifacts from research and architectural guidance, and business and engineering requirements.
• Model the performance of formally specified systems
• Produce prototypes and simulations
• Refine specifications, using the performance models and simulations to gauge the impact of design decisions during refinements
• Discover new properties about the specifications and their implications
• Prove properties of the specifications and of the correctness of refinement steps
• Communicate with both researchers and developers, and act as a bridge between the two: you will provide feedback to researchers about issues that come up when their work is incorporated into real world systems. You will assist developers in understanding your specifications and in turning them into production code
• Report on your work, in the form of blog posts, technical report documents, presentations at internal seminars, as well as at workshops and conferences, and/or by contributing to academic papers
• Participate in code reviews
• Contribute property-based tests, both for testing properties of the executable specifications/prototypes, and for verifying production code against the executable specifications
• Contribute to the implementation, extension, and maintenance of custom static analysis tooling
• Work in an international team across multiple time zones
• Break down large and complex tasks assigned to you into workable items, and work on them independently
• Share specialized knowledge with other team members

Requirements

Who you are:

• A higher degree in Computer Science or a related field
• A minimum of 2-3 years of experience in a functional language, preferably Haskell
• A minimum of 2-3 years of experience in a dependent-typed language, preferably Agda
• Experience working and collaborating with Git
• Experience with one or more formal methods
• Experience in one or more of the domains we are working in -- networking, distributed systems, programming language design, blockchain applications -- would be a bonus.
• Demonstrated ability to work on difficult problems in a self-driven way
• Deep thinking, problem solving
• Ability to understand and translate complex ideas and break them down simply for yourself and others
• Software engineering skills
• Bridge between research and engineers
• Translate and reshape information for the software engineers to understand properly
• Telling researchers when there is a discrepancy - feedback to research
• Be able to receive input from researchers, thoroughly understand and translate information into final code
• Continuously brings fresh ideas to the mix
• Be versatile and enjoy a fast-paced, ever-changing environment
• Be a savvy problem solver
• New starter package to buy hardware essentials (headphones, monitor, etc)
• Competitive PTO

At IOG, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace where all individuals are valued and empowered to succeed. We welcome people of all backgrounds and ensure that employment decisions are based solely on merit, qualifications, and potential. Everyone is given equal opportunities regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law.