At Niobium Microsystems, we develop high performance microelectronic products to enable the secure collection, processing, and distribution of critical data. We are a trusted partner for Department of Defense and commercial customers whose solutions require lower power, higher efficiency, and proven security.

Founded as a 2021 spinout from a world-class security and computing systems R&D company, our team combines decades of experience in advanced semiconductor design with experience in advanced cryptography. Niobium is headquartered in Dayton, Ohio with additional locations in Portland, Oregon; Denver, Colorado; and Columbus, Ohio. The preferred location for this position is Portland, Oregon but we will not be limited by geography for the right candidate.

Our values are at the heart of every decision we make and we understand that each member of our talented team is the key to our on-going success. For those reasons, we've designed a highly competitive benefits program to support employees and their families. These include: 

• Competitive salaries scaled based on experience
• Employer paid health care
• Employer contribution to health savings account
• Flexible time off
• Flexible work location with remote options
• 401K employer match

POSITION DESCRIPTION /

Niobium Microsystems is seeking a software engineer with 5 years of relevant experience. Reporting to the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), the successful candidate will develop, demonstrate, simulate, and characterize performance of sample applications that represent prospective customer workloads. Working with emerging industry standard homomorphic encryption libraries and programming languages such as C , Rust, or Python, the successful candidate will first understand the application targets by working with customers, create both plaintext and homomorphic versions of the target application, select parameters for computations such as ring dimension, plaintext modulus, and others, prepare data for execution, and then use our performance simulators and (when available) our hardware platforms to characterize and optimize application performance. After characterization, the candidate will work with the CTO to present the results to customers as part of our sales process. The successful candidate will also develop internal benchmark suites that characterize our product performance in publishable form to proactively engage customers and excite the market segment. An essential outcome of this work is the identification and prioritization of improvements to our software stack and future hardware products. The Niobium environment is fast-paced with overlapping priorities and requires the candidate to be highly flexible, able to juggle multiple tasks at once. This position is integral to the success and growth of Niobium Microsystems. 

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES /

Primary Responsibilities:

• Applications Engineering

• • • Design applications to specification (internal and external)
    • Develop and tune applications for prototypes & client engagements 
    • Characterize performance of applications on Niobium simulators and hardware 
    • Identify and recommend opportunities for hardware and compiler optimization and improvement
    • Develop tools for parameter selection and optimization
    • Ownership over the application layer for Niobium hardware

• Application configuration tools 

• • • Develop and productize tools to make it easy for users of our platform to select Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) schemes and parameters for their applications
    • Create modular tools for FHE key generation, encryption, and decryption, making it easy for a users without deep FHE experience to perform these complex tasks quickly and correctly

• Application performance simulation tools

• • Work with the Niobium hardware team to understand our hardware acceleration platform and accurately model its performance on candidate applications
  • Interact with users to teach them how to model the likely performance of the applications they need to run in FHE, and how to make trade-offs to improve efficiency while maintaining required security and computational precision

DESIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE /

Required:

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in applications development
• Exposure to cryptography
• Experience in application performance modeling using detailed processor execution models
• Experience in creating and characterizing performance using micro- and macro-benchmarks
• MS in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering, or equivalent
• Ability to multi-task and prioritize in a fast-paced environment; managing multiple complex, multidisciplinary tasks and projects.
• Ability to work collaboratively across teams and communicate effectively.
• Attention to detail and remarkable eye for accuracy.
• Willingness to learn and develop new skills.

Preferred:

• Experience in development of homomorphic encryption libraries and application development
• Advanced degree in relevant fields of study

CONTACT /

careers@niobiummicrosystems.com

444 E 2nd Street, Suite 250, Dayton, OH 45402

niobiummicrosystems.com