Teng Zhang - Research Scientist at Aptos

Teng Zhang

Research Scientist at Aptos

Seattle, Washington, United States

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Summary

🤩

Rockstar

🎓

Top School

Teng Zhang is a research scientist in Seattle with a decade of experience building and verifying complex back-end systems, currently contributing to Aptos's layer-1 blockchain. He holds a PhD in Computer Science (Formal Methods) from the University of Pennsylvania and combines deep theoretical expertise with practical engineering from roles at Facebook, AWS, and earlier industry experience in Java development. Teng’s open-source work on the Move prover and Aptos core shows hands-on impact on smart-contract verification, bytecode processing, and spec translation—improving correctness for a widely watched blockchain project. He has a track record of fixing subtle verification bugs (e.g., recursive functions and shift ops) and extending tooling to support richer type and vector semantics. Colleagues rely on him for bridging formal methods and production back-ends, turning proofs and spec changes into usable CLI features. Teng’s background suggests a rare mix of formal rigor and pragmatic implementation skills that accelerate safe, auditable blockchain development.

10 years of coding experience

2 years of employment as a software developer

Bachelor’s Degree, Computer Science, Bachelor’s Degree, Computer Science at Beihang University

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Computer Science, Formal Methods, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Computer Science, Formal Methods at University of Pennsylvania

Github Skills (10)

smart-contracts10

move10

rust10

formal-verification10

bytecode10

blockchain10

code-analysis9

command-line-interface8

command-line8

cli8

Programming languages (10)

MDXC#BoogieShellC++RustCMove

Github contributions (5)

aptos-labs/aptos-core

Oct 2022 - Jan 2023

Aptos is a layer 1 blockchain built to support the widespread use of blockchain through better technology and user experience.

Role in this project:

Back-end Developer

Contributions:1260 reviews, 4 commits, 466 PRs in 2 months

Contributions summary:Teng contributed to the Move Prover, a tool used to verify smart contracts and blockchain code. Their work involved modifying and improving the prover's functionality, including allowing multiple let-bindings in spec functions and adding options for script reach. The contributions included changes to the specification translation process, the codebase for processing and verifying bytecode and the addition of new features within the command-line interface. The user also worked on adding assertions to a mock implementation of a fungible store.

blockchain-platformblockchainuser-experienceblockchain-networksmart-contracts

move-language/move

Oct 2022 - Jan 2023

Role in this project:

Back-end Developer

Contributions:70 reviews, 23 commits, 92 PRs in 3 months

Contributions summary:Teng primarily contributed to the Move prover, focusing on bug fixes and improvements to the Move language's verification tools. Their work involved modifying the boogie backend, bytecode and stackless bytecode generator, and spec translator. Key contributions include fixing shift operations, addressing issues related to recursive function handling, and adding support for all types in vectors, enhancing the prover's functionality and correctness.

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