at Interlay

Alexei

September 15, 2020

Use any asset on any blockchain platform. Fast. Secure. Trustless

At Interlay, we envision a future where permissioned and permissionless blockchains, regardless of design and purpose, can seamlessly connect and interact. From trustless loans to decentralized derivatives & exchanges, from off-chain payment protocols to application-specific ledgers: anyone should use any digital currency on any blockchain platform.

The open-source XCLAIM framework allows users to move assets across public/permissionless blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum in a trustless manner. Enterprises, on the other hand, can utilize XCLAIM to execute settlements across different permissioned ledgers, choosing from a palette of possible trust models based on use case and required security. To fully exploit the benefits of interoperability, Interlay is building a decentralized trading platform for cross-chain derivative trading on top of XCLAIM (e.g. BTC/ETH, BTC/DAI and BTC/DOT).

Interlay was founded by Imperial College London PhDs, who have been working on blockchain security and game theory for the past 5 years. As such, at Interlay we take a research-driven approach: our product designs are bleeding-edge tech and are backed by peer-reviewed, top-tier scientific publications.

Check out our code at: github.com/interlay

Press:

- https://cointelegraph.com/news/interoperable-blockchains-may-be-the-future-of-finance-but-have-a-ways-yet-to-go
- cointelegraph.com/news/spotify-like-subscription-model-proposed-for-collatera…
- coindesk.com/web3-foundation-funds-technical-bridge-connecting-polkadot-to-bi…

We are looking for a software engineer to help us implement PolkaBTC.

The PolkaBTC bridge connects Bitcoin with the Polkadot ecosystem in a trustless and decentralized manner and will serve as the main gateway for bringing BTC liquidity into Polkadot’s DeFi ecosystem. The design is based on top tier academic research and the implementation follows our detailed specification. The project is funded by a Web3 Foundation grant.

Your task will be to implement new modules as well as test and improve our current proof-of-concept implementation of PolkaBTC to ensure it is production-ready software in collaboration with our software engineering team. Additionally, you will write CLI-based clients that can interact with PolkaBTC. To get a better idea of what the final product should look like, check out our initial demo of the app.

The Substrate-based blockchain, as well as our CLI clients, are written in Rust. You will need to have an excellent understanding of at least one programming language (e.g. Rust/C/C++/Go) and experience with writing production-ready software (incl. E2E testing). Experience with development in blockchain-based environments and/or distributed systems is strongly encouraged, as you will need a basic understanding of the underlying technology to ensure the security of the system in a decentralized and open environment.

Full-time and preferably based in the UK

What you will do

Implement and test an open-source Rust (Substrate) bridge for creating Bitcoin-backed assets on Polkadot (PolkaBTC)
Implement and test open-source clients in Rust that interact with Bitcoin and Polkadot
Enhance our current testing setup from simple unit tests to integration and fuzz testing
Collaborate with the other team members to ensure that we deliver the software in time and according to the specification
Improve the design of the bridge with respect to runtime performance and security
Contribute to other open-source projects that we integrate with

What you bring

Experience in creating and deploying production-ready applications in a language such as Rust/C/C++/Go
Experience with testing strategies and testing frameworks
Understanding of distributed/decentralized computing
Passion for secure software (specifically in Rust)
Desire to learn and work with bleeding-edge technology
BSc/MSc degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience
Proficiency in English

“Nice to have”