🚀 Recruitment: WP3 (Rust/Async Wire Protocol) + WP4 (Zig/eBPF Daemon MVP)

## Opportunity

Vaked is a capability-graph language for deterministic agentic systems. We're hiring 2 full-time engineers to implement the runtime (June 24–Oct 15, 2026).

## WP3: Litany Wire Protocol (Rust/Async Networking)

**Role:** Rust engineer with async/networking experience
**Duration:** Jun 24 – Oct 15 (16 weeks, 8 sprints)
**Compensation:** TBD
**Location:** Remote

### Your Mission
Build the Litany wire protocol (RFC 0002–0006 implementation). Vaked declarations compile to capability-graph messages. You're responsible for the bytes on the wire.

### Deliverables (Sprint-by-Sprint)

| Sprint | Dates | Deliverable | Acceptance |
|--------|-------|-------------|-----------|
| WP3-1 | Jun 24–Jul 8 | hcpbin serialization (Rust) | 90%+ unit tests, no panics |
| WP3-2 | Jul 9–Jul 23 | Frame layer (RFC 0003) + codec | Interop with Python reference |
| WP3-3 | Jul 24–Aug 6 | Message routing (RFC 0004) | Schema validation, dispatch tests |
| WP3-4 | Aug 7–Aug 20 | Error handling (RFC 0005) | Fault scenarios, recovery verified |
| WP3-5 | Aug 21–Sep 3 | Capability grant/attenuation (RFC 0006) | End-to-end tracing |
| WP3-6 | Sep 4–Sep 17 | Integration with eventd | Interop testing |
| WP3-7 | Sep 18–Oct 1 | Stress test & perf tuning | Baseline: 1K msg/sec through eventd |
| WP3-8 | Oct 2–Oct 15 | Docs + final integration | Ready for WP5 (formalization) |

### Your Toolkit
- Rust 1.75+, tokio, serde, bincode
- RFCs: protocol/rfcs/0002–0006 (frozen by Jun 21)
- Reference: Python hcpbin impl (for oracle testing)
- Testing: Differential oracle (your Rust ↔ Python reference)
- Blockers escalate by Wednesday each sprint; Friday sync with WP4 engineer

### Required Skills
- 3+ years Rust (async/await, error handling)
- Familiarity with async networking (tokio, quinn, HTTP/2 concepts)
- Can read RFCs, write tests, participate in design
- Self-directed (async-first workflow; minimal sync meetings)

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## WP4: Daemon MVP (Zig/eBPF Systems)

**Role:** Zig engineer with Linux systems experience
**Duration:** Jun 24 – Sep 15 (12 weeks, 7 sprints)
**Compensation:** TBD
**Location:** Remote

### Your Mission
Build the Vaked daemon stack: `sandboxd` (process isolation), `agent-supervisord` (OTP-style supervision), `eventd` (event relay), and eBPF policy enforcement. This is the runtime that makes POLA promises real.

### Deliverables (Sprint-by-Sprint)

| Sprint | Dates | Deliverable | Acceptance |
|--------|-------|-------------|-----------|
| WP4-1 | Jun 24–Jul 8 | sandboxd skeleton + Nix build | `nix build .#sandboxd` succeeds |
| WP4-2 | Jul 9–Jul 23 | Isolation backend chosen + benchmarked | <5% overhead, contract locked |
| WP4-3 | Jul 24–Aug 6 | agent-supervisord skeleton | OTP supervisor tree pattern |
| WP4-4 | Aug 7–Aug 20 | eventd core + message dispatch | WP3 integration contract |
| WP4-5 | Aug 21–Sep 3 | eBPF policy skeleton | Capability enforcement hook |
| WP4-6 | Sep 4–Sep 10 | Vakedos integration test | MVP complete; deploy to EPYC |
| WP4-7 | Sep 11–Sep 15 | Polish + docs | Ready for Phase 2 (WP5) |

### Your Toolkit
- Zig 0.16.0 (stdlib only; frozen in flake.nix)
- Nix build system (flake.nix, nixosConfigurations.vakedos)
- eBPF (libbpf, clang backend, ringbuf)
- OTP/BEAM (Erlang supervisor patterns)
- Vakedos: bare-metal NixOS host (EPYC 4345P, 128 cores)

### Critical Dates
- **Jun 19:** Isolation backend decision (native-exec vs. OCI vs. Firecracker; recommendation: start native-exec, benchmark)
- **Jul 23:** agent-supervisord ↔ sandboxd port contract locked
- **Aug 6:** eBPF policy schema finalized
- **Sep 15:** MVP complete

### Required Skills
- 2+ years Zig or C (systems programming)
- Linux syscalls, process isolation (chroot, namespaces, seccomp)
- eBPF or kernel tracing experience
- OTP/Erlang familiarity is a plus
- Self-directed (async-first workflow)

---

## Why Vaked?

### Research Angle
Vaked combines **closed constraint logic** (decidable type checking) + **typed POLA** (capability attenuation as a type rule) + **deterministic lowering** (reproducible artifact generation). This is novel for agentic systems.

### Practical Angle
We're building infrastructure for verifiable AI agent systems. Vaked declarations compile to:
- `flake.nix` (NixOS configs)
- Zig daemon configs
- eBPF policy manifests
- OTel telemetry
- CrabCC symbol indexes
- Operator dashboards

### Publication Path
- **Phase 1 (#103):** Language + type system paper (arxiv Jul 1, 2026)
- **Phase 2 (#113):** Wire protocol + POLA enforcement (arxiv Nov 15, 2026)
- **Phase 3 (#114):** Full-stack system + deployment (arxiv Apr 2027)

You'll be authors on Phase 2 and Phase 3 papers.

---

## How to Apply

**Send to:** `cabotage@protonmail.com`

**Include:**
1. CV/résumé (Rust/Zig experience, 1–2 page)
2. GitHub profile or 1–2 code samples (recent work)
3. Brief cover letter: Which WP (3 or 4)? Why interested? Any questions about the roadmap?
4. Availability: Can you start Jun 24 full-time?

**Timeline:**
- Applications close: Jun 19, 2026 (EOD UTC)
- Interviews: Jun 20–21
- Offers: Jun 22
- Onboarding: Jun 24

---

## Resources

- **Language spec:** `vaked/grammar/vaked-v0-plus.ebnf` (EBNF v0.3)
- **Type system:** `docs/language/0011-type-system.md`
- **Lowering:** `docs/language/0012-lowering.md`
- **Roadmap:** `ROADMAP_2026-2027.md` (this entire sprint plan)
- **RFCs:** `protocol/rfcs/0001–0006` (Litany wire protocol)
- **Onboarding:** `.claude/skills/vaked-engineer-onboarding.md`
- **Project:** https://github.com/peterlodri-sec/vaked-base
- **Mastermind meetings:** Fridays (WP3 ↔ WP4 sync), blockers by Wednesday

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## Questions?

Post in **#vaked-dev** Slack or comment here. Owner: @peterlodri-sec.

**Welcome to Vaked! 🚀**