Florian Kluge
Team lead at o1Labs — cryptography, zero-knowledge, and shipping SDKs developers actually use.
Est. 2022 · Writing, talks, and working on o1js
Personal site · 2026
What I do
A short dispatch on what the work looks like day-to-day, and the through-line behind the talks, writing, and years below.
I lead the o1js team at o1Labs, where we build developer tooling for zero-knowledge applications on Mina Protocol. My work spans cryptography, distributed systems, and the craft of shipping SDKs that real product teams can pick up and use. I care a lot about engineering culture — growing strong engineers, building things we are proud of, and shipping work that actually reaches people.
Skills
Five broad practices I keep sharp. Each is a cluster of specifics that I can talk through in a single conversation without reaching for slides.
- Engineering Leadership
- Team leadership · Roadmap ownership · Technical interviews · Leveling & mentorship · Cross-team coordination · Release strategy
Leading the o1js team at o1Labs — building the growth pipeline, aligning protocol and SDK work, and shipping things engineers are proud of.
- Cryptography & Zero-Knowledge
- PLONK · Kimchi / Pickles · Folding schemes · Circuit design · Proving pipelines · Soundness analysis
The core technical practice — designing circuits, auditing constraint systems, and making zero-knowledge proofs practical for product teams.
- Distributed Systems
- Protocol engineering · zkApps architecture · Rollups · L1 / L2 integration · Protocol ↔ SDK alignment
Working the seam between Mina Protocol and the SDK — translating protocol constraints into APIs developers can actually reach for.
- Developer Experience
- SDK & API design · TypeScript-native DSLs · Migration paths · Release strategy · Documentation · Onboarding
The craft of shipping tools people keep using — careful deprecations, sharp APIs, and onboarding that doesn't lie about the hard parts.
- Languages & Tooling
- TypeScript (6+ yrs) · Rust · OCaml · Go · Node.js · WebAssembly · Docker · Nix · PostgreSQL · GraphQL
TypeScript is the daily driver; Rust and OCaml are where I go when the proving stack or protocol work demands it.
Experience
Where the work has actually been done. Listed newest first; the dates are approximate because I tend to remember months better than titles.
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Engineering Team Lead — o1js
Leading the o1js team: owning the architecture, roadmap, and release strategy for the TypeScript-native ZK circuit SDK that developers use to build zkApps on Mina.
- Owned end-to-end delivery of the MESA hardfork — authored protocol changes, coordinated protocol/SDK/infra teams, and shipped a 4× state-size expansion for DeFi and gaming zkApps.
- Scaled o1js from 4K to 15K monthly npm downloads with ~600 GitHub stars while leading a team of four engineers.
- Shipped o1js v2 as a coordinated migration across protocol, cryptography, and SDK layers — breaking changes with zero ecosystem downtime.
- Built the engineering growth pipeline: technical interviews, leveling rubrics, and mentorship toward broader ownership.
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Founder
Advising early-stage Web3 startups on zero-knowledge circuit architecture, proving pipeline design, and smart-contract security — including a full engineering audit of constraint systems and soundness properties for a pre-launch protocol.
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Software Engineer — o1js
Co-architected o1js from its early stages through v1.0 — designing the zkDSL, building the Mina integration layer, and establishing the API patterns that became the foundation of the current developer experience.
- Replaced a custom circuit language with a TypeScript-native authoring system, lowering the barrier to ZK development for hundreds of production zkApps.
- Delivered low-level proving-pipeline optimizations that improved time-to-first-proof by up to 20%, making consumer-facing privacy apps noticeably faster.
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Software Engineer
Led a frontend modernization from PHP/Laravel to Vue.js + TypeScript — shipping a progressive web app used by field inspectors for vehicle compliance checks.
Recognition
Hackathon wins, board seats, advisory work — the side of the practice that lives outside day-to-day shipping.
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Best Overall — Aztec Track
Took home Best Overall on the Aztec track at the Solana Privacy Hackathon — a cross-ecosystem build pairing Aztec's private execution with Solana's rails.
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Board Director
Elected by employees to represent engineering and product priorities at the governance level.
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1st Place
Built a production-ready TypeScript SDK for proof verification on Aligned Layer.
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Technical Advisor
Advising on rollup architecture and protocol design; contributed to the technical whitepaper.
Talks & Panels
Public speaking since 2022 — conferences, workshops, firesides. The places I turned up, the rooms I argued in.
- India Blockchain Week 2025 — Zero-Knowledge Application Patterns conference Practical design kit for combining off-chain computation with on-chain proofs so builders can escape “everything on-chain.”
- Builders Hangout with o1Labs livestream Community session about the o1js roadmap, developer experience, and where Mina’s ecosystem investment is headed.
- NoirCon0 — From Complexity to Clarity: The o1js Approach to zkDSLs talk Talk on the principles behind o1js and how we keep a zk-focused DSL approachable for product teams.
- NoirCon0 — From Code to ZKP: Exploring zkDSLs panel Panel with the Aztec crew covering language ergonomics, developer education, and constraints that shape zk DSLs.
- Blockchance 2023 — Unlocking the Power of Programmable Privacy talk Exploring Mina + SnarkyJS patterns for programmable privacy that respect real-world UX.
- Privacy in Cosmos — Prague 2023 fireside Conversation on the future of privacy across Cosmos, IBC, and how zk tech stitches across ecosystems.
- Programmable Cryptography Istanbul — ZK Co-processors & Decentralized Computing conference Session on zk co-processors, TypeScript-friendly tooling, and how we see programmable crypto evolving.
- zkDay Paris — The Programmable zkVM panel Panel on zkVM directions hosted by Manta Network, covering programmability and developer ergonomics.
- zkHack Istanbul — Exploring o1js: Build Web-Native zk Applications with Ease workshop Workshop on bringing web-native dev practices to zero-knowledge through o1js.
- ZuConnect Istanbul — Scalable Decentralized Computing summit Talk on threading zero-knowledge proofs through decentralized compute stacks for human-scale UX.
- Blockchain Autumn School — Mina and the world of zkSNARKs lecture Lecture on the fundamentals of Mina and hands-on approaches to zkSNARK-backed apps.
- OFR Lisbon — Could zkEVM be the Endgame of Scalability? panel Panel debate on scaling, rollups, and how generalized zkVMs may (or may not) land.
- Rollup Day Bogotá — zkVerse: App-Specific Rollups with Mina’s zkVM talk Session on application-specific rollups built atop Mina’s prover stack.
- StarkNET CC Lisbon — Implementing High Level Languages on Rollups talk Discussion on language design decisions for rollups and what builders expect from compilers.
- zkIgnite — Mina zkApp Architecture Workshop workshop Hands-on walkthrough of a zk voting app architecture to show how the pieces fit together.
Selected Writing
A curated shelf rather than everything I have ever published. Ordered by which I would hand you first, not by date.
- Privacy is Becoming Non-Negotiable Substack · essay A perspective on why privacy is moving from a nice-to-have to a baseline requirement across modern crypto apps.
- Introducing o1js v2 o1Labs blog · release Release notes for the second major version of o1js focused on performance, DX, and better onboarding for product teams.
- The Many Saints of Privacy: Nullifiers in o1js o1Labs blog · note Deep dive into privacy-preserving primitives in o1js and how nullifiers keep commitments honest without leaking context.
- zkApps on Mina and o1js o1Labs blog · article Introductory tour through building zero-knowledge applications on Mina with o1js, written for engineers who want pragmatic guardrails.
- MESA Hardfork: Increase On-Chain State Size Limit Mina Forum · proposal Proposal to expand zkApp account storage so protocol designers can model richer state without brittle packing tricks.
- Zeko: Fractal scaling of ZK applications using a Shared Sequencer L2 Stack Zeko · litepaper Litepaper on Zeko, a shared sequencer design for zero-knowledge applications that need layered throughput.
- Unlocking the Power of Privacy o1Labs blog · essay How developers can pair homomorphic encryption with zero-knowledge proofs to keep UX smooth while preserving privacy.
- Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Voting o1Labs blog · note Reference architecture for private voting systems that mix zk proofs, off-chain logic, and distributed key generation.
- An Introduction to zk-Rollups on Mina Medium · explainer Explainer on scaling Mina with zk-rollups and how to reason about succinct proofs at the edges.