Staff Software Engineer, Backend

SOLANA FOUNDATION; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 190,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Market-leading salary

Meaningful equity

Generous vacation

Wellness budgets

Learning and travel support

Job summary

Helius is seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to own one of our core systems—Gatekeeper, Data Streaming, Historical APIs, or Account Index—at the intersection of performance and scale. You’ll set technical direction, shape architecture, and drive end-to-end ownership with founders and leadership.

You’ll lead design decisions, mentor senior engineers, and raise the bar for reliability and operability across critical infrastructure that serves the Solana ecosystem.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of backend engineering experience building large-scale systems.
• Strong systems-level expertise spanning software and hardware considerations.
• Proficiency in Rust (preferred) or C++/Go with solid production experience.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction for a core backend system, including architecture, reliability, performance, and roadmap.
• Design and implement solutions to hard problems in distributed systems, storage, streaming, or edge infrastructure.
• Drive performance engineering through profiling, benchmarking, and latency/throughput improvements.
• Set standards for observability, incident response, and safe, operable systems.
• Collaborate with founders and leadership on long-term technical strategy; mentor engineers and influence across teams.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Rust

C++

Go

System design

Performance engineering

Ownership mentality

Mentoring

Leadership

Job description

About Helius

Helius is a leading developer platform on the Solana blockchain, dedicated to inspiring and accelerating the creation of crypto-powered software. Customers like Coinbase, Jupiter, and Phantom use Helius to power their applications on Solana.

We’ve raised over $34m from Haun Ventures, Founders Fund, Foundation Capital, 6th Man Ventures, Reciprocal Ventures, Chapter One and angel investors including Solana co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal, and Balaji Srinivasan. Our team members have previously built mission-critical, scalable infrastructure at AWS, Coinbase, Stripe, Google, Digital Ocean, and more.

Read our Helius Manifesto to see how we work and what we value.

About the Role

We're looking for a Staff Backend Engineer to take ownership of one of our core systems - Gatekeeper, Data Streaming, Historical APIs, or Account Index. These are the foundational layers of Helius's infrastructure, operating at the intersection of extreme performance requirements and real-world scale. Each system sits in the critical path of the Solana ecosystem.

At this level, you're not just building - you're setting technical direction, making architectural decisions that shape the platform for years, and raising the bar for everyone around you. You'll work directly with founders and engineering leadership to define what we build and how we build it. Small team, enormous scope, and the expectation that you'll own your domain end-to-end.

What You'll Do

• Own the technical direction for a core backend system - architecture, reliability, performance, and roadmap

• Design and implement solutions to the hardest problems in your domain - distributed systems, storage engines, streaming pipelines, or edge infrastructure

• Drive performance engineering across your system - profiling, benchmarking, and pushing latency and throughput to the limit

• Set standards for operational excellence - observability, incident response, and making systems simpler and safer to operate

• Partner with founders and engineering leadership on long-term technical strategy

• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers, drive technical consensus, and influence without authority

• Identify and solve complex, ambiguous problems that span multiple systems
  

What You'll Bring

• 8+ years of backend engineering with a strong track record building large-scale, production-grade systems

• Deep systems-level expertise - you operate comfortably at the layer where software meets hardware

• Proficiency in Rust (strongly preferred) or equivalent systems programming language (C++, Go)

• Demonstrated ability to own and evolve complex systems end-to-end, from architecture to production operations

• Experience leading ambiguous, cross-team technical initiatives and driving them to completion

• Performance engineering instincts - you've profiled hot paths, understood the root cause, and fixed it at the code level

• High ownership, high intensity - you thrive in fast-moving environments and hold yourself to an exceptional standard

• Prior exposure to engineering cultures that prioritize operational excellence, performance, and customer reliability at scale

Nice to Have

• Deep expertise in one or more of: distributed storage, streaming infrastructure, edge networking, or query engines

• Experience building or operating systems at petabyte scale or microsecond latency budgets

• On-call ownership of mission-critical production services

• Interest in Solana, blockchain infrastructure, or real-time financial systems

• Open source contributions or technical writing that demonstrates depth

• Mix of large and small company experience strongly preferred - you've built the habits and can operate at both speeds

Why Helius?

• High-impact work: Your code will power applications used by millions across the Solana ecosystem, including Coinbase, Jupiter, and Phantom.

• Serious engineering: Build fast, reliable systems and user experiences across distributed infra, high-throughput backends, and modern frontend stacks.

• Ownership & growth: Lead critical initiatives, influence architecture and product direction, and take on more responsibility as the company scales.

• Remote-first flexibility: Work where you’re most effective with a flexible, fully distributed team.

• Competitive comp & perks: Market-leading salary, meaningful equity, generous vacation, wellness budgets, and support for learning and travel.

• Mission-driven team: Join ambitious builders who move fast, take ownership, and are shaping the future of decentralized apps.