Sept 9, 2019 – Sept 20, 2019
I’ve officially begun my apprenticeship on September 9 and that means I’m both a full-time employee and a student of Zcash Foundation learning my craft which is operations. Every week I’ll post an update about the progress I’m making in my apprenticeship and things I’m learning or any setbacks.
Zcash Foundation is a non-profit whose mission is to create a payment system infrastructure for the general public to use, a similar concept to public utilities like electricity or water, and gather and fund the research to advance the cryptography for cryptocurrency.
My first week on the job was absolutely thrilling and quite fun. The foundation paid for my travel, food, and part of my Airbnb to onboard for two days at their main office in Washington, D.C. But the rest of the job will be remote and I’ll work from home.
On a side note, I’ve been to D.C. four times prior but this would be my first completely solo trip, so I was a bit nervous about figuring out the logistics of transportation to and from the airport and places I needed to be.
The office itself was located in Chinatown, which coincidentally enough I had passed through the same block this past January when I was in town for LibertyCon. Funny how life draws me back to D.C. This trip brought back a lot of nostalgia and good times with my friends when I was at LibertyCon.
Onwards to week one and two summaries.
What I’m Learning
One cool thing I learned at work last week: I started the week learning how to input reimbursements via Google Sheets, which will be helpful and efficient for my boss when she runs payroll and setting up my work gmail with a YubiKey which is a two-factor authenticator key that plugs into your computer.
Week two, I learned how to organize and clean up multiple databases and combine them into one spreadsheet in Airtable and how to set up a password vault in 1Password.
One cool thing I learned outside of work last week: I’m beginning to become more familiar with zk-SNARKs ( zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge), a privacy-related technology used to encrypt cryptocurrency. I’ll give a very simplified and primitive explanation from a layman’s point of view.
Let’s say you want to send money to someone but wish to remain completely anonymous. Likewise, the receiver also wishes to conceal any clues about their identification.
When zk-SNARKs are applied, it’s akin to finding Where’s Waldo without ever seeing the character himself. Imagine yourself opening a Where’s Waldo book and you see everything on the page except for a cut-out in the shape of Waldo. Basically that’s how a zk-SNARK work, through the use of proofs.
What I’m Creating:
One example of how I created value at work last week: I helped my boss create a new database that will later be used to plan for our yearly conference. Most of the data were scattered across three Google Sheets, making it difficult to find information in an easy and efficient manner.
The delegation of repetitive tasks was assigned to me which allowed my boss to focus on more complex tasks that specifically require her attention.
What project I’m currently working on at my BP: I’m currently creating and organizing a database of contacts, grants, and companies that will be attending ZCash Foundation’s conference.
What I’m doing to become a better version of myself overall: Organizing my day and week via Google calendar, getting into the habit of using the Pomodoro technique frequently, and file all shared documents and spreadsheets in my Google Drive, that way it’s faster and easier to find all my daily tasks and responsibilities.
