Principal Rust Engineer – Language Runtime

Progress Software; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 3,200,000 - 6,500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

30 days earned leave

Health Insurance

Professional development reimbursement

Job summary

Progress Software in Hyderabad, India is seeking a Principal Rust Engineer to own and advance a production language runtime written in Rust, including a multi-crate Cargo workspace and a high-scale async runtime.

You will translate C semantics to Rust, extend a multi-stage compiler, extend a binary wire protocol with TLS and authentication, and mentor senior engineers while driving design decisions and documentation for long-term ownership.

Qualifications

• 10+ years software engineering experience.
• 5+ years production Rust in systems software.
• Compiler or language runtime experience with parser/IR/VM.
• Async Rust at scale with Tokio and shared-state concurrency.
• Fluency with large multi-crate workspaces and reading C codebases.

Responsibilities

• Implement and optimize an async register-based VM with cooperative scheduling.
• Extend compiler pipeline (lexer, parser, AST, IR, codegen) end-to-end.
• Extend a binary wire protocol with TLS, authentication, and pooling.
• Maintain a Tokio-based async runtime handling thousands of requests.
• Manage a large multi-crate Cargo workspace, CI, and release engineering.
• Mentor senior engineers and document architecture decisions.

Skills

Rust

Async Rust

Mentorship

English comms

Education

CS degree

Tools

Tokio

Cargo

proptest

Job description

We are Progress (Nasdaq: PRGS) - the trusted provider of software that enables our customers to develop, deploy and manage responsible, AI-powered applications and experience with agility and ease.

We’re proud to have a diverse, global team where we value the individual and enrich our culture by considering varied perspectives because we believe people power progress. Join us as a Principal Rust Engineer and help us do what we do best: propelling business forward. Know more about us.

We are building a production language runtime in Rust — compiler, virtual machine, wire protocol client, and application server. You will join as a long-term technical owner of this system, working alongside experienced platform architects and a second FTE Rust engineer.

In This Role, You Will

Runtime & VM

• Implement and optimize an async register-based virtual machine with cooperative scheduling and built-in function dispatch.
• Translate language semantics from a reference C implementation into idiomatic, correct Rust.

Compiler

• Extend a multi-stage compiler pipeline (lexer, parser, AST, IR, codegen).
• Deliver new language features end-to-end with conformance and property-based tests.

Protocol & Data Layer

• Extend a binary wire protocol implementation reverse-engineered from C source.
• Own TLS, authentication, and connection pooling.

Async & Networking

• Maintain a Tokio-based async runtime handling thousands of concurrent requests with shared state and admission control.
• Contribute to HTTP, WebSocket, and gRPC server layers.

Engineering & Build

• Manage a large multi-crate Cargo workspace — dependency hygiene, CI performance, and release engineering.

Team Enablement

• Mentor senior engineers (20+ years platform experience) adopting Rust — teaching-oriented code reviews, pair programming, and progressive ownership handoff.
• Document architecture decisions and maintain design docs as first-class deliverables.

Your Background

• Overall 10+ years of Software Engineering Experience
• 5+ years production Rust in systems software (runtimes, compilers, databases, or networking).
• Compiler or language runtime experience — at least one of: parser, AST/IR, bytecode compiler, VM, or interpreter.
• Async Rust at scale — Tokio, shared-state concurrency, cancellation safety.
• Large multi-crate workspace fluency.
• Ability to read large C codebases and derive correct Rust implementations.
• Mentorship mindset — patience, clear communication, progressive handoff.
• Long-term ownership orientation — multi-year commitment.
• Excellent written and verbal English.
• CS degree or equivalent (data structures, algorithms, OS, compilers)

Additionally, It Would Be Beneficial If You Have

• VM design — opcode dispatch, cooperative scheduling, register allocation.
• Binary protocol reverse-engineering and zero-copy parsing.
• Property-based testing (proptest, quickcheck).
• Concurrent data structures — DashMap, Moka, lock-free patterns.
• Axum / Tower / WebSocket server experience.
• Developer tooling protocols (LSP, DAP).
• Observability — tracing, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus.
• Database connectivity — pooling, transactions, schema resolution.
• Experience onboarding engineering teams into Rust.
• AI-assisted development tools (Copilot, Claude).

Compensation

• Competitive remuneration package
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan Enrolment

Vacation, Family, and Health

• 30 days of earned leave
• An extra day off for your birthday
• Various other leaves like marriage leave, casual leave, maternity leave, and paternity leave
• Premium Group Medical Insurance for employees and five dependents, personal accident insurance coverage, and life insurance coverage
• Professional development reimbursement
• Interest subsidy on loans - either vehicle or personal loans.