Senior Software Engineer - JTX

SOLANA FOUNDATION; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

SOLANA FOUNDATION seeks an experienced software engineer to help build JTX, a next-generation trading app on Solana. You will join a small, high‑ownership team focused on speed, reliability, and user-centric design for on‑chain traders.

You’ll translate complex market mechanics into a fast, intuitive trading experience, shaping workflows and interfaces from the ground up while maintaining security and performance under heavy load.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience in distributed systems.
• Strong systems programming skills; Rust preferred, but C/C++ or Go are also acceptable.
• Track record building reliable, low-latency production services.
• Security-first mindset: consider attack surfaces and failure modes before coding.
• Familiarity with Solana runtime, transaction lifecycle, and market microstructure is a plus.
• Ability to operate autonomously on a 0-to-1 product with limited information.

Responsibilities

• Design and build core trading infrastructure for a new product from scratch.
• Develop low-latency services interacting with the transaction pipeline.
• Own critical components: order routing, execution, real-time market data, and risk management.
• Implement security at every layer from signing to data protection.
• Collaborate with product and infra teams to ship rapidly and iterate based on user feedback.
• Make architecture decisions as an early team member.

Skills

Distributed systems

Low-latency systems

Security mindset

Tools

Rust

C/C++

Go

Job description

About Jito

Jito builds the market layer of Solana: the execution, capital, and incentive infrastructure behind the network's onchain economy. That includes the validator client running the majority of Solana stake, BAM (a new framework for verifiable ordering, pre-execution privacy, and programmable blockspace), JitoSOL (the leading liquid staking token on Solana), and JTX (trading built directly on our own market infrastructure).
We are a lean, high-density team. Everyone here owns real surface area, works in the open, and ships at pace. The engineers on this team are the people market makers call when milliseconds matter.

Jito builds the Market Layer of Solana, the infrastructure that powers real markets on-chain. We started by building foundational network infrastructure: execution systems, capital markets, and incentive mechanisms that process billions in daily transaction value. Our products (Jito Block Engine, BAM, and JitoSOL) are market leaders and core to how Solana's economy operates.

Now we're moving up the stack. You’ll help build JTX, the trading app designed to capture the next generation of on-chain volume — not simply by adding more features or competing on fees, but by creating the platform serious traders genuinely want to use every day.

This is a product challenge that goes far beyond shipping functionality. It requires deep attention to speed, trust, feel, workflow, and user obsession at every level of the experience. The hardest part isn’t measuring what traders want — it’s building a product so intuitive and powerful that they choose it instinctively.

We're a small, profitable company with product-market fit. That means:

• High ownership: Every team member drives significant technical decisions and shapes our product roadmap.

• Fast execution: We ship rapidly and iterate based on real-world feedback. Progress, not motion.

• Technical excellence: We tackle complex problems with elegant, scalable solutions.

• Sustainable growth: Strong financials and proven market fit enable us to focus on long-term impact.

We offer competitive compensation, significant equity, and the opportunity to work on problems that matter.

About the Position

We're building JTX, a next-generation trading app that brings the speed, power, and sophistication of Solana’s market infrastructure directly to traders. This is a true 0-to-1 product effort focused on creating an experience that serious on-chain traders actually want to use — fast, intuitive, high-performance, and deeply connected to the mechanics of the market itself.

You’ll work alongside the team behind some of the leading infrastructure powering billions in daily transaction value on Solana, translating complex systems and market behavior into a seamless trading experience for users. Whether it’s shaping workflows, refining interfaces, improving execution visibility, or helping define the product from the ground up, this role will have a direct hand in building what trading on Solana looks like next.

If you've spent time thinking about how markets actually work on Solana and want to build the product layer on top of that, this is the role.

What You'll Do

• Design and build core systems for our new product from scratch

• Build low-latency, high-reliability services that interact directly with Solana's transaction and block building pipeline

• Own critical infrastructure: order routing, execution, real-time market data, and position management

• Implement security at every layer, from transaction signing to user data protection

• Work closely with the product and infrastructure teams to ship fast and iterate based on real user feedback

• Make significant architectural decisions as an early member of the team

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of software engineering experience, with meaningful time spent on distributed systems

• Strong systems programming skills. Rust preferred, but deep experience in C/C++, Go, or similar is fine

• Track record building reliable, low-latency systems in production

• Security-first mindset. You think about attack surfaces, key management, and failure modes before writing code

• Familiarity with Solana's runtime, transaction lifecycle, and market microstructure (MEV, block building, execution quality) is a strong plus

• Comfortable operating with high autonomy and incomplete information. This is a 0-to-1 product, not a mature codebase

Relevant Background

• If you have experience in any of the following, you may be a good fit:

  • Trading systems or exchange infrastructure

  • DeFi protocol engineering

  • Fintech backend systems (payments, custody, execution)

  • High-frequency or low-latency systems

  • Security engineering

How we work

Remote-first, writing-heavy, and transparent by default: most decisions happen in public Slack channels, and everyone's voice carries. We value ownership, humility, curiosity, and getting it done over getting it perfect. Small egos, high standards.

What we offer

Competitive compensation including salary and token incentives, the tools you need to do your best work, and a seat at the center of Solana's market infrastructure alongside some of the strongest engineers in the ecosystem.
Jito is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate candidates on the basis of their skills, experience, and potential contribution, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.