Staff Software Engineer, Backend

As a Staff Software Engineer, Backend at Helius, you own the technical direction of one of our core systems: Gatekeeper, Data Streaming, Historical APIs, or Account Index. These foundational layers operate at the intersection of extreme performance requirements and real-world scale, sitting in the critical path of the Solana ecosystem. At this level, you set technical direction, make architectural decisions that shape the platform for years, and raise the bar for everyone around you. You work directly with founders and engineering leadership to define what we build and how we build it.

What you'll do

• Own the technical direction for a core backend system, including 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 through profiling, benchmarking, and pushing latency and throughput to their limits
• Set standards for operational excellence, including 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 formal authority
• Identify and solve complex, ambiguous problems that span multiple systems

What you bring

• 8+ years of backend engineering with a strong track record building large-scale, production-grade systems
• Deep systems-level expertise, operating comfortably at the layer where software meets hardware
• Proficiency in Rust (strongly preferred) or equivalent systems programming language such as C++ or 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 and 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 with 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; you've built the habits and can operate at both speeds

What we offer

• Market-leading salary and meaningful equity
• Fully remote and flexible work
• Generous vacation and wellness budgets
• Support for learning and travel

About Helius

Helius is a leading developer platform on the Solana blockchain dedicated to accelerating the creation of crypto-powered software. Customers like Coinbase, Jupiter, and Phantom use Helius to power their applications. The company has raised over $34m from top-tier investors including Haun Ventures, Founders Fund, and Solana co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal.