Backend & Tooling Engineer (Rust)

Alignerr Corp.; Seattle (WA); Remote; USD 103,000 - 172,000; Part time

Job summary

Alignerr is seeking a senior Rust engineer to design and optimize high-performance systems powering AI data pipelines and evaluation tooling. This fully remote contract role emphasizes performance, correctness, and developer-friendly tooling.

You will collaborate with distributed teams, deliver production-grade Rust services and CLI tools, and help shape how frontier models are trained and measured. 20–40 hours per week, asynchronous work, and long-term engagement possible.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional Rust experience in production systems.
• Experience building high-performance backend services and CLI tools.
• Proficient with type-safe database interactions and connection pooling.
• Ability to work asynchronously across distributed teams.
• Excellent written and verbal English communication.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimize Rust systems for data pipelines and evaluation workflows.
• Develop backend services and CLI tooling for data annotation and QA.
• Improve reliability, performance, and safety across codebases.
• Collaborate with data, research, and engineering teams to support model training.
• Identify bottlenecks and implement scalable production fixes.
• Participate in design reviews to iterate on architecture.

Skills

Rust (production-grade)

Backend services

CLI tooling

Type-safe databases & pooling

Asynchronous teamwork

English communication

Job description

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 and optimize the high-performance systems that leading AI labs depend on — from data pipelines and annotation tooling to evaluation frameworks that influence how frontier models are trained and measured.

This is a fully remote contract role working on real production systems at the cutting edge of AI development. If you care deeply about performance, correctness, and building tools that engineers actually love using, this is the role for you.

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

What You'll Do

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

Who You Are

• Native or fluent English speaker with clear written and verbal communication skills
• 5+ years of professional experience writing production-grade Rust
• Proven ability to build 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 consistency
• Self-directed and comfortable working asynchronously across distributed teams

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
• Experience with distributed systems architecture or developer-facing tooling
• Background in performance profiling and systems-level optimization

Why Join Us

• Work directly with leading AI labs on systems that matter — this is real infrastructure, not toy projects
• Fully remote and flexible — work from anywhere on a schedule that fits your life
• Freelance autonomy with the structure and engagement of meaningful, high-impact engineering work
• Collaborate with sharp, mission-driven engineers and researchers at the frontier of AI development
• Potential for ongoing work and contract extension as projects scale and evolve