Sam Richards.
Engineer, entrepreneur, product lead. A decade of public goods on Ethereum; advancing it to critical public infrastructure next.
I’m an engineer, entrepreneur, and product lead. My work concentrates on open-source public goods, and on helping institutions upgrade our public commons as more of life migrates into the digital age.
I spent six years at the Ethereum Foundation. First on ethereum.org: I joined as its first full-time engineer, then built and led the team from 2021 as the site grew from five pages into hundreds, a public good serving roughly 20 million visits a year in about 50 languages, with thousands of contributors. Then at Privacy & Scaling Explorations: first leading MACI (privacy-preserving onchain voting), later heading the entire R&D group, a portfolio of applied-cryptography teams close to a hundred people. I live in Buenos Aires now, building HabitaAR. Details in /projects.
What I’m aiming at next: Ethereum as critical public infrastructure. More of life is migrating into digital systems, and the institutions that run them need infrastructure that is credibly neutral: open source, privacy-preserving, resistant to capture. I want to help governments, NGOs, and large institutions build on it. If you’re working in this domain, write to me.
If you want to know where my head is right now, see /now. The handles are on /contact.
Where I've worked.
- 2026 — presentCofounder & Technical LeadHabitaAR · Buenos Aires
Helping foreigners in Argentina navigate residency, housing, healthcare, and banking. Building knowledge and technology services to simplify interactions with complex institutions. I lead product and engineering.
- 2023 — 2025MACI Lead → Head of PSEPrivacy & Scaling Explorations, Ethereum Foundation
Led MACI product (privacy-preserving onchain voting) and team of 6, then headed the entire PSE R&D group: strategy, org design, and budgets across a portfolio of applied-cryptography teams close to a hundred people. Pushed the work toward problems institutions actually have.
- 2019 — 2023Web Developer → Team Leadethereum.org, Ethereum Foundation
Joined as the first full-time engineer and core maintainer, then led and grew the team from 2021. By 2022 the site had grown from five pages into hundreds, serving roughly 20 million visits a year in about 50 languages, with thousands of open source contributors.
- 2019Software EngineerFetch
Simple and secure Ethereum wallet and DEX aggregator enabling live price discovery and one-click trades. Shipped frontend app flows and Uniswap integration. Early days for consumer onchain products.
- 2015 — 2018Product EngineerNeighborly · San Francisco
Municipal-bond investment platform. Tens of city and state government partners; over $100M of securities transacted to individual investors. First encounter with the inefficiencies of public capital markets.
- 2012 — 2014SEO ManagerRed Ventures
Managed SEO properties for large consumer brands including DIRECTV and American Express. Deployed and optimized marketing websites generating millions in revenue.
- 2010 — 2012Owner, Web DeveloperWake Wash LLC
Bought a business, completely rebuilt it, and sold it for 15x my initial investment.
- 2018 — 2019
- 2015Software engineering immersive San Francisco
- 2008 — 2012B.S. Business and Enterprise Management Wake Forest University