Staff Software Engineer, Backend
Helius · Remote · United States · 1mo ago
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.