Backend & Tooling Engineer (Rust)

Alignerr; Denver (CO); Remote; USD 96,000 - 165,000; Full time

Job summary

Alignerr is seeking a Senior Rust Engineer to design and optimize production-grade data pipelines, annotation tooling, and evaluation systems powering AI infrastructure. You will work on backend services and CLI tooling that scale for data annotation, validation, and quality control, while collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams.

This remote, hourly contract role demands 5+ years of Rust production experience, strong systems skills, and the ability to contribute asynchronously 20–40 hours

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience writing production Rust.
• Proven track record building high-performance backend web services and robust, user-friendly CLI tools.
• Experienced with type-safe database interactions and connection pooling for large-scale data workloads.
• Able to commit 20–40 hours per week with reliability and focus.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimize high-performance systems in Rust powering AI data pipelines and evaluation workflows.
• Develop full-stack backend services and CLI tooling for large-scale data annotation, validation, and quality control.
• Improve reliability, safety, and performance across production Rust codebases.
• Collaborate with data, research, and engineering teams to support model training and evaluation workflows.
• Identify bottlenecks and edge cases in data and system behavior — then implement scalable, well-reasoned fixes.
• Participate in synchronous design and code reviews to iterate on architecture and implementation decisions.

Skills

Rust

Backend development

CLI tools

Database connections

Remote work

Tools

Open-source Rust projects

Job description

Backend & Tooling Engineer (Rust) — AI Infrastructure

About The Role

What if your Rust expertise could directly shape the infrastructure powering the next generation of AI? We're looking for a Senior Rust Engineer to build the data pipelines, annotation tooling, and evaluation systems that leading AI labs depend on to train and benchmark their most advanced models.

This is high-impact, production-grade work — not toy projects or throwaway scripts. You'll be embedded in real engineering workflows, solving hard systems problems alongside data, research, and engineering teams at the frontier of AI development.

• Organization: Alignerr
• Type: Hourly Contract
• Location: Remote
• Commitment: 20–40 hours/week

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and optimize high-performance systems in Rust powering AI data pipelines and evaluation workflows
• Develop full-stack backend services and CLI tooling for large-scale data annotation, validation, and quality control
• Improve reliability, safety, and performance across production Rust codebases
• Collaborate with data, research, and engineering teams to support model training and evaluation workflows
• Identify bottlenecks and edge cases in data and system behavior — then implement scalable, well-reasoned fixes
• Participate in synchronous design and code reviews to iterate on architecture and implementation decisions

Who You Are

• Native or fluent English speaker with strong written and verbal communication skills
• 5+ years of professional experience writing production Rust — you know the language deeply, not just the basics
• Proven track record building high-performance backend web services and robust, user-friendly CLI tools
• Experienced with type-safe database interactions and connection pooling for large-scale data workloads
• Able to commit 20–40 hours per week with reliability and focus
• Self-directed and comfortable working asynchronously across a remote team

Nice to Have

• Prior experience with data annotation, data quality pipelines, or model evaluation systems
• Familiarity with AI/ML workflows, model training, or benchmarking infrastructure
• Background in distributed systems or developer tooling
• Experience contributing to or maintaining open-source Rust projects

Why Join Us

• Work on real production systems at the cutting edge of AI development
• Collaborate directly with leading AI research labs on high-stakes infrastructure
• Fully remote and async-friendly — work from wherever you do your best work
• Freelance autonomy with meaningful, technically challenging work
• Potential for ongoing engagement and expanded scope as projects evolve