Staff Engineer – Variational (Rust)

Backend Engineer – High‑Throughput Trading Infrastructure
Location: Remote / US‑based (flexible)
Team size: ~15 engineers (growing fast)

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About Us

We are building the foundational infrastructure for the next generation of decentralized derivatives. Our peer‑to‑peer protocol enables seamless trading, clearing, and settlement of perpetual contracts at scale. To date we’ve facilitated hundreds of billions in trading volume and enjoy undisputed product‑market fit.

• Category leader in growth – outpacing the market on both volume and feature velocity.
• Recently closed a $50M+ Series A round backed by Bain Capital Crypto, Peak XV (Sequoia), Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly, Hack VC, and other top‑tier investors.
• A lean, high‑output team of engineers drawn from elite trading firms and leading tech companies.

We are doubling headcount over the next two quarters and need foundational hires who thrive in high‑throughput, low‑latency environments where the stakes are measured in billions.

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The Role

As a Core Backend Engineer you will own critical, high‑throughput systems that process billions of dollars in daily volume. You’ll design, build, and operate the distributed architecture that powers our trading, settlement, and client‑facing services.

Key Responsibilities

• Design & Build high‑frequency trading back‑ends, derivatives settlement pipelines, and full‑stack client APIs.
• Architect Distributed Systems – consistency protocols, multi‑service communication, async queues, real‑time processing.
• Database Design & Optimization across relational, time‑series, flat‑file, and OLAP stores.
• Production Infrastructure – CI/CD, containerized deployments, monitoring, tracing, alerting.
• Security Implementation – JWT auth, WAF configuration, least‑privilege access controls.
• Infrastructure as Code – manage cloud resources with Terraform (or AWS CDK).

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What We’re Looking For

Requirement	Details
Experience	5+ years building backend systems for trading platforms, high‑throughput services, or comparable domains.
Languages	Strong proficiency in Rust (preferred) or C++. Go/Java acceptable only with deep distributed‑systems expertise (not just dev‑tooling).
Distributed Systems	Proven ability to design and ship large‑scale, low‑latency services (consensus, sharding, async messaging, etc.).
Database Expertise	Hands‑on experience with PostgreSQL, time‑series stores, Redis/Memcached, and OLAP solutions.
Production Ops	Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform (or CDK), CI/CD pipelines, observability (metrics, logs, tracing).
Software Engineering Level	Senior (L5+) – L6 strongly preferred; track record of owning high‑impact systems end‑to‑end.

Bonus Skills

• Direct experience with trading platforms, market‑making, HFT, or DeFi.
• Rust proficiency (especially if transitioning from C++/Go).
• Knowledge of crypto/Web3 concepts (nice to have, not required).

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Why Join Us?

• Impact: Your work directly powers billions of dollars in daily trading volume.
• Speed: Ship features at a rapid pace in a high‑trust, low‑bureaucracy environment.
• Growth: Be part of a fast‑scaling team; opportunities to lead new initiatives as we double headcount.
• Capital‑Backed: Strong financial backing gives us the runway to execute ambitious product roadmaps.
• Culture: Engineers are self‑directed, own end‑to‑end systems, and collaborate closely with domain experts from trading and tech.

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Application Process

1. Resume & Cover Letter – Highlight relevant high‑throughput or trading experience.
2. Technical Screen – Deep dive into system design, distributed architecture, and code fundamentals.
3. On‑site/Virtual Interviews – Architecture whiteboard, coding (Rust/C++), and culture fit.
4. Offer – Competitive salary, equity, and benefits package.

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Ready to build the infrastructure that will define the future of decentralized derivatives?
Apply now and help us shape the next wave of high‑performance finance.