Staff Software Engineer, Protocol

About the Company:

World is building a real human network designed to accelerate people in the age of AI. As bots and autonomous agents reshape the internet, people, institutions, and applications need a trusted way to confirm who is a real human while preserving privacy. Our products make this possible: the Orb verifies real people, World ID proves it privately, and World App enables and distributes the new applications made possible by this technology. Together, they form a new layer for AI internet.

We’re one of the fastest-growing networks in tech. More than 17 million people across 160 countries have verified with World ID, and we complete over 350,000 verifications each week. World App is already among the most used wallets globally. Developers are integrating World ID to build safer online experiences and create spaces where real people can participate, earn, and be recognized in ways AI simply can’t replicate.

World was founded in 2019 and launched globally in 2023. We are more than 400 people across hardware, software, AI, cryptography, mobile engineering, and global operations. Our teams come from OpenAI, Tesla, SpaceX, Apple, Google, Stripe, Meta, Coinbase, Palantir and MIT Media Lab. We’re backed by leading investors, including a16z, Khosla Ventures, Bain Capital Crypto, Blockchain Capital, Variant, Tiger Global, and Coinbase Ventures, as well as prominent operators and founders across fintech and AI.

World has been featured on the cover of TIME Magazine, highlighted in Fast Company’s Next 5 in Fintech, and explored in a Bloomberg deep dive. The New York Times, Bankless and TechCrunch have all recognized our progress in identity, cryptography, AI, and global-scale hardware deployment. Our leadership is also named to the Time AI 100.

This opportunity would be with Tools for Humanity.

The Protocol team at TFH consists of a group of engineers focused on shipping production-grade systems at the edge of cryptography, Ethereum/L2s, and zero-knowledge. We design and implement trustless, decentralized, and privacy-preserving systems that are built to scale to billions of users. Our work powers World ID, World Chain and other protocols within the World ecosystem, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with decentralized identity and blockchain scalability. We regularly collaborate with leading teams in the Ethereum ecosystem as well as contribute to open research and protocol design.

*This role is onsite based in our San Francisco, CA office

In this role, you will drive development of the core protocols that power the World ecosystem including services that support World ID, World Chain, and related systems. You will contribute to the design and implementation of existing software, and engage in protocol related efforts exploring the cutting edge of blockchain scalability. This is a highly collaborative role where you will often be working closely with other teams at TFH to build mission-critical services at the foundation of the World ecosystem.

• Drive the design and implementation of production ready services to support the World ecosystem

• Write clean, efficient and maintainable code in Rust.

• Own features from design to deployment. Provide thorough code review to help increase the maintainability of critical services.

• Collaborate with teams across a variety of disciplines including cryptography, blockchain infrastructure, AI, and hardware to solve challenging problems and deliver robust, scalable solutions.

• Take ownership of deployments, monitoring, and long-term maintenance of services in production.

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including at least 2+ years building in production with Rust.

• You have a T-shaped skillset and bring strong technical depth in areas like distributed systems, protocol design, blockchain, zero-knowledge cryptography or related topics and you're eager to lead in one or more of these domains.

• You have extensive experience running services in production and are well-versed in distributed tracing, logging, metrics, alerting, and on-call operations. You've been through incident response and know what it’s like to be in the war room. 

• You value clean, well-tested code and understand the importance of engineering best practices in writing scalable, maintainable software..

• Above all, you're excited to help shape the foundation of a privacy-preserving digital identity ecosystem.

• An open and collaborative office space in downtown SF 

• Unlimited PTO  

• Monthly Phone Reimbursement or a company device

• Daily in-office meals 

• Top-tier medical, dental, vision insurance 

• 401k + employer match program 

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Pay transparency statement (for CA and NY based roles): 

The reasonably estimated salary for this role at TFH ranges from $225,000 - $275,000, plus a competitive long term incentive package. Actual compensation is based on factors such as the candidate's skills, qualifications, and experience. In addition,  TFH offers a wide range of best in class, comprehensive and inclusive employee benefits for this role including healthcare, dental, vision, 401(k) plan and match, life insurance, flexible time off, commuter benefits, professional development stipend and much more!

By submitting your application, you consent to the processing and internal sharing of your CV within the company, in compliance with the GDPR