Applied Cryptography Researcher (Research Coding Tasks)

What you'll do

You start from an applied cryptography paper with released code and remove the implementation of its core contribution. The rest is packaged as a task for an AI agent, which must rebuild the scheme and beat the authors' results on the paper's own benchmarks. You write the task statement, set held-out evaluation workloads and per-metric thresholds, and supply a hidden reference solution along with a second one that proves the bar can be beaten. You later review agent attempts.

The ad lists FHE, MPC, zero-knowledge, PIR and lattice-based or post-quantum implementations as the area. In this field the benchmark is usually performance (latency, throughput, proof size, communication), so correctness checks and performance thresholds both have to be designed carefully by you. The ad does not describe how security properties are verified.

What you need

• Published applied cryptography research with released code; the ad names CRYPTO, Eurocrypt, CCS, USENIX Security or PETS, or comparable venues
• A PhD in computer science or a related field, completed or in progress
• A link to a paper you authored and its code, plus its headline result, both required on the application form

Nice to have

• First-author papers reporting measured improvements over a baseline
• Comfort with Docker and reproducible benchmark setups
• Depth in FHE, MPC, zero-knowledge, PIR or lattice-based and post-quantum implementations

What it pays

The AfterQuery board headlines $80/hour for this role. The ad text itself gives a per-task figure instead: $200 per approved task, with each task taking a few hours. Payment only follows approval, so a task that is rejected earns nothing for the time spent. The listing does not publish payment frequency, minimum weekly hours or monitoring terms; the AfterQuery company page covers what is known about how contractors are paid.

Worth knowing

Good:

• You work from your own paper and code, so the domain knowledge is already in your head
• Fully remote and asynchronous, with no shifts
• Your own cryptographic implementation work counts directly, which is rare for AI-training contracts

Less good:

• Pay is per approved task, so the hourly figure depends on how quickly you build and validate a task
• The bar for a task is high: you must supply a hidden reference solution and a second solution that beats the authors' results, which takes real engineering time
• The ad says candidates go through background checks, and the application needs a paper link, its code and a headline result up front
• The ad warns that candidates who do not meet the stated requirements are deprioritised, so apply only if you fit

About this listing

Read from the AfterQuery Experts board on 29 October 2026. This is one of twelve Research Coding Tasks roles that share a template across different research fields; this write-up covers the specifics of this field. The listing does not give an application deadline or a number of openings. See AfterQuery.