Digital Contract Design, LLC

Wordsig

Project Description for Wordsig Lead Programmer

Digital Contract Design (DCD) is managing and helping fund an open-source (free as in speech and beer) project allowing one to unilaterally prevent a deepfake of one's speech actions. The project's working name is "Wordsig", and it was conceived in a culture-hacking mindset by Andrew Critch, a UC Berkeley Researcher concerned about digital security in the face of AI disruptions. Wordsig is a simple protocol that allows video participants to use a stream of QR codes to digitally sign the words they speak with a private key, and allows viewers to verify the consistency of these signatures across videos. This allows a trusted connection to be established between the viewer and participant that is not mediated by the content distributor.

DCD is seeking a remote independent contractor to serve as the Lead Programmer to manage the full product lifecycle and guide the team in delivering this application on the iOS, Android, web browser, and desktop platforms.

Qualifications and Requirements

Interviews will be conducted in English and Rust. The ideal service provider will have demonstrated:

professional expertise managing the full lifecycle of software products in the technology industry or equivalent field;
professional expertise building and deploying software products as part of a high-functioning team;
professional expertise conducting product research, understanding user experience with and use of products, and defining products correctly to drive user engagement;
professional experience conducting UX/UI testing, absorbing requirements and feedback from users, and communicating them clearly to the development team;
professional experience building, guiding, and inspiring remote teams multiple time zones;
professional experience managing releases on proprietary mobile app stores as well as language-specific and distro-specific package repositories;
several years of experience coding in strongly typed and functional programming languages;
superior skills providing functional, error-free, clean, and correct code;
superior skills coding in Rust;
superior skills assessing the quality of Rust code;
open source contributions in Rust, including something preferably pre-2021;
experience managing or actively contributing to open-source projects and a strong understanding of the software development process; and
exceptional communication skills, both written and verbal, with mastery in the art of conveying technical information to a wide range of audiences.

Scope of Work

This is a twelve-month project with a strong possibility of an extension. The ideal service provider will take maximum ownership of:

creating and implementing the product definition, vision, strategy, and roadmap from conception to launch, with detailed tasks, deliverables, deadlines, and staffing requirements to provide a timely product delivery;
collaborating with the Recruiting Team to identify and engage highly skilled programmers; conducting technical interviews with prospective independent contractor candidates;
guiding the team you build to ensure that established priorities and deadlines are successfully met;
defining the product correctly to drive user engagement prior to and during launch;
conducting extensive product research to fully understand user experience with and use of the product;
absorbing requirements and feedback from users, translating them into actionable tasks and requests, and communicating them clearly to the development team to ensure that user requirements are understood and built accordingly;
collaborating with the development team to implement extensive UX and UI experimentation to enhance the product's user experience;
conducting regular Rust code reviews to ensure the delivery of secure, reliable, and robust open source software;
collaborating with the development team to implement a final software design review and testing plan to confirm that the product is fully functional and ready for release;
providing detailed technical information, clear articulate verbiage, and direct support to ensure a successful product launch; and
delivering the Wordsig app on the iOS, Android, web browser, and desktop platforms.

Compensation