About the role
About the Company: World is building a real human network designed to accelerate people in the age of AI. As bots and autonomous agents reshape the internet, people, institutions, and applications need a trusted way to confirm who is a real human while preserving privacy. Our products make this possible: the Orb verifies real people, World ID proves it privately, and World App enables and distributes the new applications made possible by this technology. Together, they form a new layer for AI internet. We’re one of the fastest-growing networks in tech. More than 17 million people across 160 countries have verified with World ID, and we complete over 350,000 verifications each week. World App is already among the most used wallets globally. Developers are integrating World ID to build safer online experiences and create spaces where real people can participate, earn, and be recognized in ways AI simply can’t replicate. World was founded in 2019 and launched globally in 2023. We are more than 400 people across hardware, software, AI, cryptography, mobile engineering, and global operations. Our teams come from OpenAI, Tesla, SpaceX, Apple, Google, Stripe, Meta, Coinbase, Palantir and MIT Media Lab. We’re backed by leading investors, including a16z, Khosla Ventures, Bain Capital Crypto, Blockchain Capital, Variant, Tiger Global, and Coinbase Ventures, as well as prominent operators and founders across fintech and AI. World has been featured on the cover of TIME Magazine , highlighted in Fast Company’s Next 5 in Fintech, and explored in a Bloomberg deep dive . The New York Times , Bankless and TechCrunch have all recognized our progress in identity, cryptography, AI, and global-scale hardware deployment. Our leadership is also named to the Time AI 100 . Learn more about the newest product launches from our Unwrapped event. As the Head of World Chain you will own the architecture and technical roadmap for the chain so it can support the economic activity of millions of users and global World ID availability. Deliver a credible design path for World Chain to provide robust economic security to the protocol, on-chain privacy, and high reliability. Additionally, you will set the long-term decentralization plan for the network and lead the team that ships it. Based in San Francisco, in office. What You'll Do: Lead Chain Roadmap: Work with key stakeholders across products to define in-protocol changes to the chain architecture that enable critical products such as on-chain privacy, alternate authentication methods for transactions, and priority block space. This may also include re-architecting key pieces of infrastructure or even overhauling core blockchain design. Decentralization: Design a credible decentralization strategy for the chain. Distribute AMPC and other critical services across independent operators with SLAs, telemetry, and third-party reviews. Align fees and incentives, including World ID Fees , so neutral parties can run core infrastructure sustainably. Interoperability and DevX: Ship SDKs for e.g. uniqueness and credential attestations that let developers integrate once and run across EVM, mobile, and at least one non-EVM stack. Keep APIs stable and deterministic so reads and writes behave the same under load. Provide reference apps and tests so first integrations land the same day and stay fast as usage ramps. Team and technical visibility: Build a senior, co-located SF team across protocol, ZK, security, and infra, and hire 8-12 exceptional ICs with clear bars. Lead hands on with specs, code reviews, on-call, and a cadence of capacity reviews, chaos drills, and postmortems. Publish research and standards work so the protocol’s direction is legible to partners and the community. Qualifications: Must-have Hands on technical skills with the ability to build and lead an engineering roadmap. Ability to manage a high performing team and hire senior engineers Excellent communication skills and leadership presence. Nice-to-have Proven protocol architecture at L1/L2 or equivalent core distributed systems work at scale. Deep ZK literacy and Ethereum/rollup stack expertise. Track record shipping audited, upgradeable on-chain systems with clear SLOs and dashboards. EIP or standards authorship; multi-client experience. Prior leadership of an open protocol community. Device attestation or secure hardware integration. Pay transparency statement (for CA and NY based roles): The reasonably estimated salary for this role at TFH ranges from $306,000 - $360,000, plus a competitive long term incentive package. Actual compensation is based on factors such as the candidate's skills, qualifications, and experience. In addition, TFH offers a wide range of best in class, comprehensive and inclusive employee benefits for this role including healthcare, dental, vision, 401(k) plan and match, life insurance, flexible time off, commuter benefits, professional development stipend and much more! By submitting your application, you consent to the processing and internal sharing of your CV within the company, in compliance with the GDPR