The Center For Digital Trust (https://c4dt
org) is part of EPFL (https://epfl
ch) in Lausanne, Switzerland
EPFL is one of the top-20 universities worldwide with over 10’000 students
At C4DT, we’re looking for an engineer (human, 80%-100% workload) to work on open-source projects that increase privacy and make it possible for end-users to regain trust in the digital world
You’ll be working on open-source projects that have been developed in one of the 30+ labs (https://www
c4dt
org/laboratories/) associated with C4DT, to fit the needs of one of the 12 industrial partners (https://www
c4dt
org/partners/) of C4DT
TLDR: if you prefer lists instead of text: https://recruiting
epfl
ch/Vacancies/726/Description/2
Projects and Technology
The C4DT projects include blockchains, Internet of Things, Machine Learning, and Software verification, in areas of medical research, insurances, and governments
But not limited to…
Working at C4DT will bring you in contact with different technologies
Starting from system-level programming in Go of a blockchain, going through more application-level programming in Java or Scala, all the way up to creating simple user interfaces in Typescript or Javascript to demo our projects
All this work is to bring the research-quality software from the labs to a quality high enough for our industrial partners to use it in minimal viable products
And of course you’ll be using GitHub for version control, CryptPad to communicate, and Travis for continuous testing
You’ll have to teach us continuous integration
Day-to-day Work
Your team lead will make sure that most of your time will be spent programming on the software packages themselves: debugging, adding features, integrating them with the other packages
We try to keep meetings to the needed minimum, but you’re always welcome to wander the corridors and visit one of the many conferences at EPFL (https://memento
epfl
ch/), discuss with the colleagues of the other labs, or even organise a small workshop on a topic you’re interested in
Part of your work is also to train engineers from our partners to use our software, to give support for integrating our packages into their projects, as well as presenting the work you’re doing to partners and engineers from other labs
Challenges
Doing the step from the research idea to something that can be used by industries is not easy and involves much more than just programming
You need to be able to imagine the future product and propose solutions to problems posed by our industrial partners
If you succeed to fit the needs of our partners, and to help the labs create better software, then you’ll be successful in this job
The team
Our engineering team at C4DT is currently composed of two engineers, but we work regularly hand-in-hand with around 10+ engineers, PhDs and postdocs from other labs, as well as engineers from our industrial partners
Interacting with the other teams is a very important part of the job, as all software developed by C4DT is based on the labs’ work
Our Recruitment Process
We aim to reply to all applicants within a week of receiving your application
Our interview process consists of several stages, each one allowing us get to know you better, professionally and technically
It is also an opportunity for you to gain a better understanding of our culture and the work we do here at C4DT
The stages include:
- CV and open source code review
- Phone Interview – getting to know each other and deciding if you’re willing to go through the following step:
- Code Challenge – we’ll give you a problem to solve to understand how you work
You work on your own for 4-8 hours, but in the language we define
Then we’ll work together on your code for about 1h
- Second phone interview – wrapping up and making sure we’re a fit for each other
To C4DT and beyond
C4DT is part of EPFL (https://epfl
ch), so even though C4DT only has a small engineering team, there are plenty of opportunities for growth: the Innovation Park is on the other side of the road of your office and hosts a number of new startups every year, as well as many companies that work together with C4DT or EPFL in general
EPFL itself has new and interesting positions in other centers and labs
Helping you grow into that ecosystem is our pleasure – but please stay for at least 2 years 😉