Founding Platform Engineer

MLabs; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

MLabs is seeking a Founding Platform Engineer (Staff+ level) to own the core trading platform and scale a high-performance crypto trading system for mobile-first users, supporting spot and perpetuals with cross-chain considerations.

You will own data, API surface, and reliability, integrate trading engines, harmonize data, and ensure near-zero downtime under volatile markets with a remote-first, autonomous, globally distributed team.

Qualifications

• Proven track record engineering resilience under massive traffic spikes and graceful degradation strategies.
• Experience building financial rewards and accounting systems with idempotency and replay safety.
• Understanding end-to-end latency budgets from input to render.
• Advanced database optimization in PostgreSQL.
• Strong proficiency in Rust development.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, remote environment across North American or European timezones.

Responsibilities

• Own the core platform, including data layer, rewards engine, notifications, API surface, and reliability.
• Integrate perpetual trading engines via Hyperliquid and spot trading via Jupiter and Relay.
• Aggregate and harmonize data from multiple providers into a single source of truth.
• Implement resilient caching and data delivery mechanisms to handle high traffic.
• Design cross-chain abstraction to make multi-chain balances seamless for users.
• Maintain peak performance and uptime during market volatility.

Skills

Rust

PostgreSQL

Latency optimization

Distributed systems

System design

Job description

We are hiring on behalf of our client, a fast-growing innovator in the crypto and decentralized finance space who is seeking a Founding Platform Engineer (Staff+ level) to join the team. This organization is behind a leading decentralized exchange (DEX) on HyperEVM, having achieved significant revenue milestones with an ultra-lean team. The client is now expanding its technical architecture to build an advanced, mobile-first crypto trading platform (spot + perps) alongside a novel, original social product featuring cutting-edge mechanisms.

As the first and only engineer in this specialized domain, the incoming candidate will take an original product vision and turn it into a robust, high-performance system—holding the entire architecture and the smallest details simultaneously. The operational environment is primarily asynchronous, highly independent, and built for top-tier developers who can scale infrastructure from zero to massive daily trading volumes while maintaining absolute reliability.

• Platform Ownership: Own the core platform, including the data layer, rewards engine, notifications, the API surface, and overall system reliability.
• Trading Engine Integration: Integrate perpetual trading engines through Hyperliquid, alongside spot trading via Jupiter and Relay.
• Data Harmonization: Aggregate and unify conflicting data providers (such as Zerion, CoinGecko, Mobula, Alchemy, and Hyperliquid) into a single, cohesive source of truth.
• High-Performance Data Delivery: Serve heavy data rapidly by implementing resilient caching mechanisms that survive traffic stampedes and fan-out structures that hold under pressure.
• Cross-Chain Abstraction: Design architecture that makes a single USDC balance across multiple chains entirely invisible and seamless to the end user.
• Peak Performance & Reliability: Maintain absolute uptime during peak market volatility; ensure the application never lags or crashes when it matters most, guaranteeing users can always close positions.

Requirements

• Proven track record of engineering resilience, including keeping a high-stakes system alive through massive traffic spikes and determining graceful degradation strategies in advance.
• Extensive experience building financial rewards and accounting systems that withstand retries, prioritizing idempotency, replay safety, and precise lot tracking.
• Deep understanding of end-to-end latency budgets (from a user's tap to screen rendering).
• Advanced database optimization skills, capable of resolving bottlenecks directly within PostgreSQL rather than relying on secondary databases.
• Strong proficiency in Rust development.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, remote environment across North American or European timezones.

Competitive Compensation: Top-market base salary paired with significant equity upside.

Flexible & Remote-First Work: 100% remote working model with flexible schedules and high operational autonomy.

Due to the high volume of applications we anticipate, we regret that we are unable to provide individual feedback to all candidates. If you do not hear back from us within 4 weeks of your application, please assume that you have not been successful on this occasion. We genuinely appreciate your interest and wish you the best in your job search.

Commitment to Equality and Accessibility:

At MLabs, we are committed to offer equal opportunities to all candidates. We ensure no discrimination, accessible job adverts, and providing information in accessible formats. Our goal is to foster a diverse, inclusive workplace with equal opportunities for all. If you need any reasonable adjustments during any part of the hiring process or you would like to see the job-advert in an accessible format please let us know at the earliest opportunity by emailing [e-mail].

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