SecureSpeedCore – Shifting the Rust in Telco with Rust in Software
Engineering, IT, Mathematics and Statistics
ABOUT THE INDUSTRY PARTNER
Telstra is Australia’s leading telecommunications and technology company, offering a full range of communications services and competing in all telecommunications markets. In Australia Telstra provides around 22.5 million retail mobile services and 3.4 million retail bundle and data services.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
The global telco industry is in the grips of modernisation through software. While large parts of this transformation are happening around Customer Experience, the technology stack that underpins (through standards such as 3GPP /GSMA) are still very much traditional engineering based focused on performance from the hardware all the way to the API interfaces. Rust is an emerging software language that is ear marked to replace many high performance use cases from the hardware upwards making it an ideal candidate.
SecureSpeedCore is all about understanding how far we can push Rust into the traditional telco domain, by trying to combine traditional telco technologies with open source Rust. Validating the use of Rust in the telco domain is the real world / large scale will help us understand the boundaries on how it can be used and allow the student to gain this experience and potentially play a pivotal role in shaping high performance open source software in the telco domain.
RESEARCH TO BE CONDUCTED
The student/candidate will be embedded within an engineering team and paired with senior telco architects and software developers for continuous mentoring. They will participate in code reviews, design workshops, and system integration activities.
- Analysis of existing telco software stacks to assess their suitability for Rust-based modernisation.
- Design and development of Rust-based protocol libraries optimised for high-speed, secure, and scalable telco workloads. This will involve determining the existing Rust package space, developing novel packages to meet stringent technical requirements. This can include very low levels of performance testing for different implementations which would also have academic implications and extend out to other performance based projects (i.e. Linux kernel).
- Real-World Impact and Applications: By working on this project, candidates will contribute to the development of libraries that could end up powering parts of our backend, which has the potential to revolutionise the wider global telco domain.
- Industrial and Processional Development: Candidates will receive leading mentorship from the industry, which will help them refine their research skills, improve their technical understanding, explore career opportunities, develop a strong foundation for future career opportunities in academia, industry, or entrepreneurship. Candidates will also gain experience in project management, collaboration in team setting, and presenting their research findings to diverse audiences.
SKILLS WISH LIST
If you’re a postgraduate research student and meet some or all the below we want to hear from you. We strongly encourage women, indigenous and disadvantaged candidates to apply:
- Domain Knowledge: Telecommunication based degree (or specialisation). It is imperative that the student understands the basics on how telecommunication works (as its different form many other domains such as IT)
- Domain Knowledge: Research background in algorithms and/or optimisation
- Technical Skills: Strong knowledge of Rust, ideally with some exposure to C/C++
- Technical Skills :Strong knowledge of system engineering – software and operating systems (Linux), ideally with some exposure to hardware.
- Technical Skills: Strong understanding of modern software development processes
RESEARCH OUTCOMES
- Demonstrate development capabilities of Rust into telecommunication specific elements
- Development of software libraries that meet the low latency, high performance requirement for Telco workloads.
- Delivery proof of scale implementation against existing (largely c based or vendor solution) implementations
ADDITIONAL DETAILS
The intern will receive $3,300 per month of the internship, usually in the form of scholarship payments.
It is expected that the intern will primarily undertake this research project during regular business hours and maintain contact with their academic mentor throughout the internship either through face-to-face or phone meetings as appropriate.
The intern and their academic mentor will have the opportunity to negotiate the project’s scope, milestones and timeline during the project planning stage.
Please note, applications are reviewed regularly and this internship may be filled prior to the advertised closing date if a suitable applicant is identified. Early submissions are encouraged.
INTERNSHIP CONTACT
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