Rust Engineer (AI DevTool Start-Up)
$200,000 - $260,000 + Equity + Benefits + PTO
On-site in San Francisco, CA
Are you a Rust engineer who obsesses over latency numbers that most engineers wouldn't even notice? Do you want extreme ownership of the most important technical project on a company's roadmap, at a platform already handling billions of requests a month for some of the most recognised names in tech and beyond?
This is an opportunity to join a fast-growing, profitable startup at the forefront of AI infrastructure, building the compliance and reliability layer that enterprise customers like Adobe, Netflix, and NASA depend on in production. Backed by top-tier investors, the team has built the world's most widely used LLM Gateway, a unified platform that gives developers secure, scalable access to every major LLM provider.
The platform is currently built in Python - they want it in Rust. You'd be the person who makes that happen, working directly with the CTO to plan the sequencing, restructure the codebase, and roll it out without ever putting live traffic at risk. The goal is straightforward: become the lowest-latency, highest-throughput gateway in the category. The person who pulls this off will have defined the architectural foundation the entire platform runs on.
Strong equity in an already profitable company before their Series A makes the timing particularly interesting.
The Role
-
Take full ownership of the Python-to-Rust migration from initial architecture through to production rollout
-
Work directly with the CTO to sequence the migration and manage risk to live, high-volume traffic throughout
-
Design a gradual rollout strategy that keeps stability non-negotiable as the migration progresses
-
Restructure the existing codebase to set it up for a clean, incremental transition
-
Push meaningful gains in latency, throughput, and resource efficiency at 1B+ requests/month
-
Work cross-functionally to keep the migration aligned with broader backend performance and reliability priorities
The Person
-
Years of production Rust experience - this isn't a language you're still figuring out
-
Genuinely cares about shaving milliseconds off latency in a way most engineers don't
-
Has shipped large-scale changes on live systems without breaking things
-
Comfortable with backend infrastructure fundamentals: PostgreSQL, Redis, high-volume distributed systems
-
Bonus: has led a migration from another language into Rust before
-
Bonus: has a track record of shipping in performance-critical, high-throughput environments
Rise Technical Recruitment Inc of 1011 Centre Rd, Suite 322, Wilmington, DE 19805 act as an employer-paid private personnel agency.
The salary advertised is the bracket available for this position. The actual salary paid will be dependent on your level of experience, qualifications and skill set and will be decided by our client, the employer. Rise are not responsible or liable for any hiring decisions made by the end client.
We are an equal opportunities company and welcome applications from all suitable candidates.
