Founding Principal Backend Architect; Rust

Overview

Ole Ole 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.

Founding Backend Architect / Principal Rust Engineer

• Designing and owning core backend architecture in Rust (async-first)
• Defining service boundaries, data ownership, and evolution strategy
• Designing scalable APIs (REST and/or Graph
  
  QL) for mobile and web clients
• Modeling and operating Postgre
  
  SQL 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 Dev Ops 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.

• 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

• 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 Postgre
  
  SQL 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.

• 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 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.

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

• 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

• 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 Web Assembly, gRPC, or Graph
  
  QL 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

• 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…