Backend Developer (Rust)

Onhires; United States; Hybrid; USD 104,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Onhires is seeking a Rust Engineer to join a small engineering team building a bespoke distributed graph execution engine in Rust, focused on reliable, scalable workloads. The role centers on designing graph executors and infrastructure for ETL workflows, with opportunities to influence architecture from first principles.

Ideal candidates have deep experience in backend systems, distributed architectures, and DevOps.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of backend development experience.
• 3+ years of professional Rust experience.
• Strong knowledge of distributed systems and fault‑tolerant software architecture.
• Familiarity with graph theory, type theory, parsers and compilers, and CS fundamentals.

Responsibilities

• Research, design, and build on the client’s bespoke distributed graph execution engine, written in Rust.
• Design and implement graph executor node implementations to power third‑party integrations with partner and supplier systems.
• Build and maintain infrastructure for the distributed execution engine — deployment pipelines, observability, and site reliability.
• Design and implement coordination and fault‑tolerance mechanisms from scratch (not by wrapping existing message queues) — handling partial failures, node coordination, and recovery within the engine itself.
• Develop and maintain logistics and ETL workflows within this ecosystem, tied directly to the core business.

Skills

Backend development

Rust

Distributed systems

DevOps

Graph theory

Type theory

Parsers & compilers

CS fundamentals

Job description

RUST ENGINEER — DISTRIBUTED EXECUTION ENGINE

Berlin (hybrid) or Remote (countries within ~4–5 hours travel of Berlin)

ABOUT OUR CLIENT

Our client is a B2B sourcing platform serving the automotive dealership industry. They're a small, fast-moving engineering team building core infrastructure from the ground up rather than assembling off-the-shelf tools — the kind of environment where a single engineer's technical decisions shape the product for years.

ABOUT THE ROLE

You’ll join a small engineering team building the client's sourcing platform. Your focus will be their flowgraph — a horizontally scalable, step-based execution engine, similar in spirit to n8n or Unreal Engine’s Blueprints, but built from the ground up in Rust with strong typing and production workloads in mind. It drives their order processing and ETL pipelines.

This isn’t a typical backend role. Rather than wiring together managed queues and off‑the‑shelf orchestration tools, the team builds its own coordination and fault‑tolerance mechanisms from scratch — because the workloads don’t fit neatly into existing solutions. If you enjoy thinking about graph theory, type systems, parsers and compilers, WASM runtimes, or distributed systems architecture as part of your everyday work — not just as a personal interest — you’ll feel at home here.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Research, design, and build on the client’s bespoke distributed graph execution engine, written in Rust.
• Design and implement graph executor node implementations to power third‑party integrations with partner and supplier systems.
• Build and maintain infrastructure for the distributed execution engine — deployment pipelines, observability, and site reliability.
• Design and implement coordination and fault‑tolerance mechanisms from scratch (not by wrapping existing message queues) — handling partial failures, node coordination, and recovery within the engine itself.
• Develop and maintain logistics and ETL workflows within this ecosystem, tied directly to the core business.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

Must-have:

• 7+ years of backend development experience.
• 3+ years of professional Rust experience.
• Strong, practical grasp of distributed systems and fault‑tolerant software architecture.
• Familiarity with at least some of: graph theory, type theory, parsers and compilers, and related CS fundamentals. We don't expect mastery of all of these — most strong candidates bring deep expertise in 3–4 out of 5 core areas, with distributed systems being the one we weight most heavily.
• Real‑world DevOps experience.

Nice to have:

• A background in C/C++ before moving to Rust.
• Experience with key‑value stores or distributed databases — FoundationDB or TiKV are a big plus.
• Experience with frontend web development.
• Experience with existing low‑/no‑code workflow tools (n8n, Prefect, AWS Step Functions).
• Understanding of WASM runtimes.
• Previous experience with logistics or process management systems.

LOCATION & SETUP

• Berlin / Wildau area: hybrid, with 1 day per week in the office.
• Elsewhere within ~4–5 hours' travel of Berlin: fully remote, no office requirement.
• Employment: official employment in Germany, or B2B contract elsewhere in Europe.
• Full‑time, ~40 hours/week, with meaningful overlap with CEST hours.