Staff Software Engineer, Backend

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

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.