Remote Senior Rust Engineer USA

About NextLink LabsNextLink Labs is a fast growing technology firm focused on helping companies build, scale, and secure their software applications and organizations. We believe that in order for companies, teams, and products to succeed, technology must be utilized effectively and securely. We pride ourselves in helping our clients win in their respective industries.As a remote-first company with team members spread out all across the country, NextLink Labs continuously works to ensure our work environment is comfortable and collaborative. We also aim to maintain an inclusive work environment where everyone can thrive professionally and live full lives outside of work.Position SummaryNextLink Labs is seeking a motivated Senior Rust Developer with a strong background in systems programming and distributed services to join our Custom Software Development consulting team. A successful person in this role will be tasked with building and maintaining scalable backend services and APIs for our clients and will be able to seamlessly integrate with our client's engineering teams.As a Senior Rust Developer, you will design and implement robust backend systems using gRPC, event sourcing, and actor-based concurrency while making critical architecture decisions to rapidly deliver features for an enterprise application built on Clean Architecture and CQRS patterns. If you are a self-motivated engineer looking to take ownership of your work, we invite you to join our team at NextLink Labs.Your ResponsibilitiesDesign, develop, and maintain scalable backend services using RustWork with other engineers to architect and implement modular, well-structured solutions across workspace crates (model, domain, data, service)Build gRPC services for inter-service communicationBuild and optimize data access layers for relational, time-series and graph databasesWork in an agile team environment with daily stand ups, and weekly agile meetingsEngage in code reviews of your teammates' workCommunicate directly with the client to give demonstrations and receive feedbackContribute to observability and monitoring using Tracing and OpenTelemetryRequired Qualifications5+ years of experience building backend services, with at least 2-3yrs building production systems in RustStrong understanding of Clean Architecture, CQRS, Event Sourcing, and actor-based concurrency patternsExperience designing and implementing gRPC APIs; Familiarity with Tonic is a plusProficiency with relational, time-series and graph databases - experience with TimescaleDB, Neo4j preferredStrong testing practices including unit and integration testing - Familiarity with BDD frameworks like Cucumber is a plusUnderstanding of security best practices including JWT-based authentication and authorizationUnderstanding of fundamental design principles behind scalable and distributed systemsNice to HaveFamiliarity with Tokio or an equivalent async runtimeExperience with async query tool kits such as SQLxExperience with distributed application runtimes such as Dapr or RestateExperience with HTTP frameworks such as Axum including WebSocket supportFamiliarity with event streaming platforms such as Apache KafkaExperience deploying and operating services on Kubernetes — familiarity with AKS, Grafana, and Azure Monitor/Application Insights is a plusStrong understanding of observability principles - experience with OpenTelemetry preferredFamiliarity with one other backend language, such as C#/.NET, Golang, or PythonAbility to work independently and take ownership across a variety of software engagementsStrong debugging, root cause analysis, and problem-solving abilitiesWhy NextLink LabsCompensation Range is USD $130,000 — $180,000 annuallyWe're a technical consulting firm that values clarity, ownership, and outcomesCompetitive salary with bonus structureRemote-first culture, flexible work schedule, and autonomy to do your best work.Healthcare (Medical, Dental, and Vision) and 401kPaid parental leaveResponsibility and autonomy at a growing companyThe opportunity to build something big and excitingVisa SponsorshipAt this time, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship or take over sponsorship for existing visas. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without the need for current or future sponsorship.