Zen Crypted Architect

Statement of Work — Architect (Delivery Manager / PO / CTO)

Project: Comprehensive leadership and stable continuous delivery of the x509.chat ecosystem
Position: Product Architect / Delivery Manager / Product Owner (dedicated to x509.chat)
Project context: Zen Crypted is seeking an Architect to unify product vision, technical excellence, and production coordination. This role is entirely dedicated to the x509.chat product, ensuring its stable evolution from a military-grade backend and mission-critical client into a world-class secure communications ecosystem.

Scope of Work (main deliverables):

Integration of Delivery Management, Product Ownership, and Technical Architecture:

• Production Coordination: Manage cross-team synchronization between server and client development to ensure seamless protocol evolution and feature parity.
• Product Responsibility: Define and refine the product roadmap for x509.chat, prioritizing features based on military and government use cases.
• Technical Leadership: Oversee the end-to-end architecture, ensuring robust compliance with X.509, CMS, and ASN.1 standards across both server and client.

Continuous Delivery & Operational Excellence:

• Establish and maintain a stable CI/CD pipeline for both Elixir backend and Swift iOS client.
• Implement automated quality gates (test coverage, static analysis, security audits).
• Manage release engineering processes, including versioning strategies and secure distribution channels.
• Orchestrate performance benchmarking and stability testing for high-load/high-security environments.

Strategic Design & Standard Compliance:

• Evolve the core ASN.1 schema to support next-generation messaging features.
• Ensure cryptographic primitives and protocols remain resistant to modern and post-quantum threats.
• Review and validate implementation of national crypto algorithms (ДСТУ) and international standards (RFCs).
• Lead technical documentation and architectural reviews.

Management & Coordination:

• Act as the primary technical point of contact for stakeholders.
• Facilitate sprint planning, daily stand-ups, and retrospectives for the x509.chat team.
• Identify and mitigate technical risks and delivery bottlenecks.
• Foster a culture of security-first development and extreme reliability.

Required skills & experience (for job/CV screening):

• 8+ years in software engineering with at least 3 years in a technical leadership or architectural role.
• Proven track record in Delivery Management or as a Product Owner for complex technical products.
• Deep understanding of secure communications, PKI (X.509, CMPv2, OCSP), and cryptographic protocols (CMS, S-MIME).
• Familiarity with the Elixir/Erlang/OTP ecosystem and Swift/iOS development.
• Practical experience with ASN.1 (X.680) and DER encoding.
• Experience in defense, aerospace, or government-grade secure messaging projects.
• Exceptional communication skills in English (Fluent) and Ukrainian (Highly desirable).
• PhD or Master degree in Computer Science or Mathematics.

Nice to have:

• Active contributions to open-source secure messaging projects or standard bodies.
• Experience with N2O.DEV or ERP.UNO stack.
• Strong background in Formal Methods or high-assurance system design.

Estimated engagement & Success criteria:

• Estimated engagement: Long-term strategic engagement (12+ months)
• Success criteria: Predictable and stable release cycle for x509.chat; high degree of team synchronization; successful pass of external security audits and field trials.