Senior Software Engineer - Go & Rust, Blockchain Infrastructure

SOLANA FOUNDATION; Fort Lauderdale (FL); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Quicknode is seeking a senior individual contributor for its Blockchain Infrastructure team. You will design, build, and optimize high-throughput Go services and Rust components powering our distributed backend across 80+ networks.

You will own systems end-to-end, mentor engineers, lead design reviews, and help set engineering standards adopted across multiple teams. This role offers growth toward Staff or Principal Engineer.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating backend or distributed systems in high-scale production environments.
• Advanced proficiency in Go and Rust with production shipping experience in both.
• Deep knowledge of distributed systems, concurrency, memory safety, databases, networking, and production software architecture.
• Proven track record delivering reliable, scalable systems with measurable improvements.
• Experience with blockchain infrastructure, high-throughput APIs, or similar distributed platforms.
• Security-aware design, threat modeling, and disciplined testing for critical systems.
• Strong written and verbal communication and ability to lead cross-team projects.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimize high-throughput, low-latency backend services in Go and Rust for production blockchain infrastructure.
• Own production Go services and Rust components, including architecture, interfaces, testing, and deployment.
• Architect distributed systems that ingest, process, and serve blockchain data with strong guarantees around consistency and availability.
• Own end-to-end technical work: requirements, architecture, implementation, testing, deployment, observability, and incident response.
• Profile and benchmark production systems to identify bottlenecks and improve throughput and resilience.
• Assess security risks and design controls to protect transactions and data.
• Debug complex failures across services and drive durable root-cause fixes.
• Partner with Product, Infrastructure, Security, and Developer Experience to translate requirements into maintainable systems.
• Lead design reviews, mentor engineers, and establish cross-team engineering standards.

Skills

Go

Rust

Distributed systems

Backend development

Security

Leadership

Communication

Tools

Kafka

RPC infrastructure

Go toolchain

Rust toolchain

Job description

Quicknode is a cloud-based infrastructure company that powers the blockchain ecosystem.

Our mission is to be the indispensable utility that empowers companies and innovators globally to build next-generation, Web3 enabled businesses & applications using blockchain technology. Quicknode is backed by some of the world's best investors including Tiger Global, Y Combinator, SoftBank, and the Seven Seven Six Fund. The Quicknode team has over 110 people maintaining high performance global data infrastructure for amazing customers serving billions of requests daily.

We are a global remote company with offices in Fort Lauderdale, FL and Lisbon, Portugal.

The Role

Quicknode deploys institutional-grade infrastructure - Core RPC API, Streams, Webhooks, Clusters, and developer tooling - across 80+ blockchain networks for teams building onchain. The Engineering team behind this infrastructure needs a senior individual contributor who can design, build, and improve the distributed systems that ingest, process, and serve blockchain data at scale, working across both Go and Rust.

This is a hands-on engineering and technical-leadership role for someone who moves comfortably between high-throughput Go services and performance- and security-critical Rust components. You will own complex systems from design through production and raise the engineering bar on reliability, performance, security, and operational quality.

This role reports into Engineering leadership for the Blockchain Infrastructure team and carries no direct reports at this level. As scope grows, you will take on larger system ownership, mentor other engineers, and help set engineering standards adopted across teams - a natural path toward Staff or Principal Engineer.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and optimize high-throughput, low-latency backend services, APIs, and data-processing systems in both Go and Rust for production blockchain infrastructure.

• Own production Go services and Rust components, including their architecture, interfaces, concurrency models, memory and resource efficiency, testing, observability, deployment, and operation.

• Architect distributed systems that ingest, process, validate, and serve blockchain data with strong guarantees around consistency, fault tolerance, scalability, and availability.

• Own technical work end to end, including requirements, architecture, implementation, testing, deployment, observability, incident response, and continuous improvement.

• Profile and benchmark production systems, identify bottlenecks, and improve throughput, latency, resource efficiency, resilience, and correctness under load.

• Assess security risks in blockchain and distributed-system components and design or review controls that protect transactions, data, credentials, and system integrity.

• Debug complex failures across services, databases, streaming systems, networks, and blockchain nodes, then drive durable root-cause fixes.

• Partner with Product, Infrastructure, Security, and Developer Experience teams to translate customer and protocol requirements into maintainable systems.

• Lead design and code reviews, mentor engineers, document important decisions, and establish engineering standards that improve quality across teams.

What You'll Bring

Minimum Qualifications:

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including substantial experience building and operating backend or distributed systems in high-scale production environments.

• Advanced professional proficiency in both Go and Rust, with demonstrated experience shipping and operating production software in each language. Go and Rust are both core requirements for this role, not interchangeable alternatives.

• Deep knowledge of distributed systems, algorithms and data structures, concurrency, memory safety and ownership, databases, networking, operating systems, and production software architecture.

• A record of delivering reliable, scalable systems with measurable improvements in performance, availability, correctness, or developer experience.

• Experience with blockchain infrastructure, high-throughput APIs, node or RPC infrastructure, data-streaming pipelines, or similarly demanding distributed platforms.

• Experience applying secure-design principles, threat modeling, and disciplined testing to systems where correctness and availability are critical.

• Strong written and verbal communication, sound technical judgment, and the ability to lead ambiguous, cross-team projects without constant direction.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with Ethereum, Solana, or other major blockchain protocols and their node, RPC, indexing, or transaction-processing architecture.

• Experience designing clean interfaces between Go services and Rust systems, libraries, or performance-sensitive components.

• Experience designing or reviewing cryptographic, wallet, signing, custody, or other security-sensitive systems.

• Experience with streaming and data infrastructure such as Kafka, queues, event-driven services, distributed databases, or large-scale observability systems.

• Demonstrated technical leadership through architecture ownership, mentorship, incident leadership, or engineering standards adopted by multiple teams.

The Quicknode compensation philosophy includes pillars to ensure fair and unbiased compensation for all employees. To design and deliver total reward offerings that are employee-centric. To offer a competitive benefit package in all locations where we operate. To prioritize attracting and retaining the best talent globally. To maintain a high-performing and flexible way of working.

During the hiring process, we are committed to discussing compensation openly and honestly. We encourage candidates to share their salary expectations and requirements early, allowing for an individualized discussion. We know that our total rewards practices impact the lives and wellbeing of our employees. Therefore, we will never stop learning about the market, our business, your needs, and how best to achieve our goals through thoughtful and data-driven practices. If you have any questions or require further information about the compensation for this position, please don't hesitate to reach out to your Recruiter.

We at Quicknode are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, age, national origin, disability status, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.