Founding Principal Backend Architect (Rust)

Job Title

Founding Backend Architect / Principal Rust Engineer

About the Role

OleOle is building a global, real-time social and messaging platform for sports fans — from the ground up, natively in Rust.

This is not a feature role and not a task-driven role.

We are looking for a senior backend engineer who has owned systems before and is comfortable making foundational architectural decisions that will not be rewritten later.

You will design and evolve the backend architecture powering public conversations, real-time messaging, video, commerce, and token-based incentives for millions of users worldwide.

What You’ll Be Responsible For

• Designing and owning core backend architecture in Rust (async-first)
• Defining service boundaries, data ownership, and evolution strategy
• Designing scalable APIs (REST and/or GraphQL) for mobile and web clients
• Modeling and operating PostgreSQL as a long-term source of truth
• Architecting real-time systems (feeds, messaging, event-driven workflows)
• Making tradeoffs around consistency, latency, and scalability
• Working with DevOps while retaining backend architectural authority
• Reviewing critical code paths and preventing premature complexity
• Helping shape the backend team as the company grows

This role is hands-on, but judgment matters more than output volume.

What You’ll Be Building

You will help lay the foundation for a native Rust platform that includes:

• A large-scale social graph (users, clubs, countries, conversations)
• Public feeds and real-time messaging
• Video and media delivery pipelines
• Token-based rewards and commerce
• API infrastructure used across mobile, web, and internal services
• Event-driven systems supporting live updates and notifications

Required Experience

• 7–12+ years of professional backend engineering experience
• Proven ownership of backend systems in production
• Strong, real-world Rust experience (async systems, not experiments)
• Deep understanding of PostgreSQL data modeling and performance
• Experience designing APIs and explaining tradeoffs clearly
• Experience building or evolving systems that had to scale
• Ability to reason about architecture without hiding behind buzzwords

If you’ve never been responsible for a system’s long-term health, this is not the role.

Nice to Have (Not Required)

• Experience with real-time systems (feeds, messaging, streaming)
• Experience with high-write or high-fanout workloads
• ETL / data pipelines
• Media or video delivery systems
• Token, wallet, or crypto-adjacent systems (non-blockchain core)

Compensation & Stage

• Compensation is deferred until funding
• Meaningful equity and long-term ownership
• Founding-level responsibility and influence
• Small team, high autonomy, minimal process

This role is for engineers who want ownership, not safety.

What This Role Is NOT

• Not a ticket-driven implementation role
• Not a DevOps-led backend role
• Not a resume-padding opportunity
• Not suitable for junior or mid-level engineers

Why This Version Works

• Senior engineers recognize themselves in this description
• Resume fakers and ChatGPT engineers self-select out
• You signal authority, ownership, and seriousness
• You stop attracting people who “know the words” but not the work

If you want, next we can:

• Tighten this further into a LinkedIn job post
• Create a one-paragraph screening message
• Rewrite the technical challenge so fakers fail instantly

Qualifications

Your Background

• 7-12 years of software engineering experience (preferably at early-stage startups or high-growth platforms)
• 4+ years of experience working in Rust in production environments, ideally on scalable web or blockchain-native backends
• Strong experience designing modern, scalable backend architectures from scratch — including authentication, real-time messaging, microservices, APIs, caching, and database design
• Proficiency with Rust frameworks like Actix, Axum, Tokio, or Rocket
• Experience with WebAssembly, gRPC, or GraphQL is a plus
• Passion for decentralization, crypto, Web3, and building products that empower users
• Comfortable working without product managers, defining scope, and leading engineering direction
• Bonus: experience with blockchain integration, tokenomics, or building in no-fee marketplaces

OleOle – Where Fans Kick Off!

Solutions not problems .

• Creative problem solver who can courageously propose and support new ideas to our organization. Not interested in best practices, lets build something better!
• Ability to adapt. An ideal candidate will welcome the opportunity to solve a broad range of problems using a wide array of technologies.
• Comfortable with ambiguity, shifting priorities and general growing pains of an early-stage technology company
• An exceptional entrepreneurial judgment that fosters independence over micro-management
• Understanding of football and international sports a huge plus

• We are offering:

• Founding engineer-level equity and token allocation
• Deferred salary until funding is secured
• All current team members are working on a deferred compensation basis — we lost our funding two months ago and made the decision to build while we raise. This comes with real risk. Closing funding could take two months or it could take five — but we’re committed to this vision and we’re looking for someone who’s equally passionate and resilient.
• Long-term ownership and technical leadership
• A mission-driven, elite team with deep experience in sports, media, crypto, and startups

• You’ll be one of the first engineers — which means maximum influence and upside.

Ole Ole is located in beautiful Austin Texas, however, this role requires some travel we are privately held and rapidly growing!