Applied Cryptographer

Mem; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

A cybersecurity firm is seeking a specialist to work on cryptographic foundations to secure identity and sensitive data. You will engage in designing identity and access systems, building credentialing and key management infrastructure, and evaluating systems for vulnerabilities against attack models. The ideal candidate has experience in cryptographic techniques, secure communication protocols, and privacy-enhancing technologies to ensure data integrity and confidentiality.

Qualifications

• Experience designing and implementing identity and access management systems.
• Development of cryptographic protocols for secure communications.
• Design of privacy-enhancing technologies for secure transactions.

Responsibilities

• Work on cryptographic foundations to secure identity and sensitive data.
• Design identity and access systems and credentialing infrastructure.
• Evaluate existing systems against realistic attack models.
• Assess existing distributed systems against realistic attack models.

Skills

Cryptographic techniques

Identity and access management

Secure communication protocols

Privacy-enhancing technologies

Security analysis

Cryptography research

Job description

Mindset

You think about how cryptographic primitives can be used to secure identity, access, communication, and storage of data. Have opinions on how trust, authorization, and credential systems should evolve with newer advances in computing and algorithms. Understand the principles that go into designing robust and adaptive cryptographic systems. Are able to identify potential flaws in a given cryptographic scheme, protocol, or implementation.

What you’ll do

You will work on the cryptographic foundations that let people, agents, and systems establish identity, delegate authority, and protect sensitive data. The job is to turn messy security requirements into mechanisms that are precise, durable, and usable in practice. You might design identity and access systems, build credentialing and key management infrastructure, develop secure and privacy‑preserving protocols, or evaluate existing systems against realistic attack models. The aim is not just elegant cryptography, but systems that remain trustworthy under real‑world use.

Preferred Background

• Designed and implemented identity and access management systems that use cryptographic techniques to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive data.

• Developed cryptographic protocols to enable secure communication between distributed systems and trusted services.

• Designed and implemented privacy‑enhancing technologies to enable secure transactions and communication while preserving users' privacy.

• Built secure key management systems, credentialing infrastructure, and other tools to enable users to manage cryptographic material securely.

• Analyzed and evaluated the security of existing distributed systems and identifying potential vulnerabilities or weaknesses that need to be addressed.

• Researched and developed new cryptographic techniques to address emerging security challenges in modern software systems.