Common Prefix is a blockchain research & development company. Blockchain technologies enable large-scale economic coordination through shared, programmable ledgers. Our mission is to solve the foundational scientific and engineering challenges standing in the way of mainstream adoption, particularly around interoperability, scalability, and usability. We combine formal scientific research with production-grade engineering. Our team publishes in top-tier peer-reviewed venues and builds open-source infrastructure used across major blockchain ecosystems. We have contributed to advanced systems including Axelar, XRPL, Sui, and Flashbots, and are trusted partners to protocols building critical infrastructure.

What we're looking for:

Software engineers who can solve problems, are smart, get things done, and enjoy working on the bleeding edge, learning about cryptography, and working from first-principles.

Tech stack: Doesn't matter, we'll teach you. But we work mostly with Rust, Go, and TypeScript.

Open roles:

- Software Engineer (mid): https://www.notion.so/commonprefix/Opening-Software-Engineer...

- Senior Software Engineer: https://www.notion.so/commonprefix/Opening-Senior-Software-E...

- DevOps: https://www.notion.so/commonprefix/Opening-DevOps-Engineer-2...

We offer:

- $50,000–$160,000 / year cash + stock grant + performance bonus (depends on level but not location)

- Local from Athens, Greece, or remote

- Conference participation in exciting scientific and engineering venues, 2-3 times per year

- The opportunity to work and learn from world-class scientists from major universities in the field of blockchains, cryptography, and consensus

Apply here:

https://commonprefix.notion.site/2b7bf672de828051b53cdd37811...

Common Prefix is a science-first blockchain consulting company. Our vision is to make blockchains usable for mainstream users and everyday people – paying at the supermarket, remittances, moving money across borders, saving, investing – and solving the real problems of usability, scalability, and interoperability that come with it. We're a 30-person team, half scientists (cryptographer PhDs, post-docs, and professors) from renowned universities, half engineers with long web2 experience. A lot of our field is broken and we're trying to make a small contribution in fixing it, by introducing provable security and proper engineering practices across the board.

What we're looking for:

Software engineers who can solve problems, are smart, get things done, and enjoy working on the bleeding edge, learning about cryptography, and working from first-principles.

Auditors who can write and read code, especially low-level cryptographic implementation code (zero knowledge verifiers, signature schemes, etc), consensus (PoW, PoS), or smart contracts (everything DeFi).

Tech stack: Doesn't matter, we'll teach you. But we work mostly with Rust.

Open roles:

* Software Engineer, https://commonprefix.notion.site/sw-folk

* Auditor, https://commonprefix.notion.site/auditing-folk

We offer:

- $80,000–$160,000 / year cash - Local from Athens, Greece, or remote, preferably in Europe - Conference participation in exciting scientific and engineering venues, 2-3 times per year - The opportunity to work and learn from world-class scientists from major universities in the field of blockchains, cryptography, and consensus

If you're interested in joining our team, please reach out to careerscommonprefixcom with the subject line "HN: ".

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20369936

Points: 14

# Comments: 8

First, if I'm looking to make money that I want to put into global investment, it doesn't matter where I earn it. The absolute number is what matters. In reality, the number that matters is how much I can save, in absolute numbers, after taxes and cost of living have been deducted, but still the salary does not scale with cost of living. In that case, if I'm willing to maximize my investment, it's possible that I'm willing to move to the best paying country (i.e. the country where I can earn the maximum absolute number after taxes and cost-of-living has been deducted) for a while. "Global investment" may be quite broad and may include, for example, effective global altruism (i.e., asking the question "If I want to maximize my life's impact in improving others' lives, where should I work and where should I donate globally?").

Second, if we're talking about a job that is a seller's market, i.e., where I have has some very specialized skill, then the fact that the company is willing to pay double the amount if I happen to live in Silicon Valley but only half the amount if I happen to live in Romania, is pretentious. The reason is that the company is in need of my skill regardless of where I live and my acceptable business cost to them is a Silicon Valley salary. The difference from paying me less just because I happen to live in Romania is simply money that goes into their pockets. Why shouldn't it go into mine? In fact, if my skill is specialized enough, I should be able to negotiate for that, since their best next alternative may be a Silicon Valley hire.

(For clarity, the above are illustrative examples. I'm not an effective altruist, do not have such a specialized skill, and do not live in Romania.)

I spend most of my time thinking about mathematical problems that I feel are impactful and important. The solutions make use of theoretical computer science (computational reductions and such). Validating the results requires running small Monte Carlo style experiments typically written in C++, Python, or Javascript. This isn't rocket science code, but it's still challenging to think what kind of assumptions and constraints to put in the model / code and which ones to leave out (although the coding part itself is pretty standard.) Other than that I mostly write TeX :)

But our solutions are implemented by the IOHK software engineers that are working on the production software implementation of Cardano. It's quite interesting to guide that work through our papers, as it handles a multibillion dollar market cap and the responsibility for making sure everything is secure is big. As for social impact, this people may disagree with, but I feel we're building next generation economies and this will impact the whole of society in making it more egalitarian, giving access to money to everyone, and making salaries more equal across the globe.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14124942

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Points: 61

# Comments: 21

- Each thing has a different value based on the person judging it. - Therefore, we cannot barter.

This is unfounded: The subjectivity of value does not make bartering impossible. Bartering is possible if one judges their own work to have less value or equal value to some other work that they are willing to exchange it for; and vice-versa.

However, I agree with the article that bartering may be undesirable; but the value argument is incorrect.