Backend Developer (Rust)

Onhires
Berlin
Remote

Who this role is best for

Aimed at senior or experienced backend developers with a strong Rust background who enjoy building distributed systems from scratch.

Best fit for

  • Senior Rust developers with a passion for distributed systems and graph-based architectures
    — “This isn't a typical backend role.”
  • Candidates with 7+ years of backend experience and a track record in building core infrastructure
    — “building core infrastructure from the ground up rather than assembling off-the-shelf tools”
  • Individuals with strong DevOps skills and a background in C/C++ or similar systems languages
    — “A background in C/C++ before moving to Rust.”

Things to consider

  • Hybrid setup in Berlin requires at least one day per week in the office.
    — “hybrid, with 1 day per week in the office.”
  • Employment is official in Germany or B2B contract elsewhere in Europe.
    — “official employment in Germany, or B2B contract elsewhere in Europe.”

How to stand out

  • Highlight contributions to distributed systems or custom execution engines in your resume and interviews.
    — “builds its own coordination and fault-tolerance mechanisms from scratch”
  • Emphasize experience in designing fault-tolerant software architecture and handling partial failures.
    — “handling partial failures, node coordination, and recovery within the engine itself.”
  • Showcase your practical understanding of graph theory and type systems in your technical projects.
    — “graph theory, type systems, parsers and compilers”
  • Demonstrate your ability to build and maintain observability and site reliability infrastructure.
    — “observability, and site reliability.”
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · Team

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • efficient distributed execution engine
  • robust fault-tolerance mechanisms
Typical background
backend developmentdistributed systems architecture

Skills & requirements

Required

Distributed SystemsFault-toleranceRustGraph TheoryDevOps

Preferred

C/c++Key-value StoresDistributed DatabasesFrontend Web DevelopmentLow-code Workflow ToolsWASM RuntimesLogistics Systems

Stack & domain

Backend DevelopmentRustDistributed SystemsFault-tolerant Software ArchitectureGraph TheoryType TheoryParsers And CompilersWASM RuntimesDevOpsProblem-solvingTeamworkCommunicationBackend

About the role

Original posting from Onhires via Ashby

RUST ENGINEER — DISTRIBUTED EXECUTION ENGINE

Berlin (hybrid) or Remote (countries within ~4–5 hours travel of Berlin)

ABOUT OUR CLIENT

Our client is a B2B sourcing platform serving the automotive dealership industry. They're a small, fast-moving engineering team building core infrastructure from the ground up rather than assembling off-the-shelf tools — the kind of environment where a single engineer's technical decisions shape the product for years.

ABOUT THE ROLE

You'll join a small engineering team building the client's sourcing platform. Your focus will be their flowgraph — a horizontally scalable, step-based execution engine, similar in spirit to n8n or Unreal Engine's Blueprints, but built from the ground up in Rust with strong typing and production workloads in mind. It drives their order processing and ETL pipelines.

This isn't a typical backend role. Rather than wiring together managed queues and off-the-shelf orchestration tools, the team builds its own coordination and fault-tolerance mechanisms from scratch — because the workloads don't fit neatly into existing solutions. If you enjoy thinking about graph theory, type systems, parsers and compilers, WASM runtimes, or distributed systems architecture as part of your everyday work — not just as a personal interest — you'll feel at home here.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

  • Research, design, and build on the client's bespoke distributed graph execution engine, written in Rust.
  • Design and implement graph executor node implementations to power third-party integrations with partner and supplier systems.
  • Build and maintain infrastructure for the distributed execution engine — deployment pipelines, observability, and site reliability.
  • Design and implement coordination and fault-tolerance mechanisms from scratch (not by wrapping existing message queues) — handling partial failures, node coordination, and recovery within the engine itself.
  • Develop and maintain logistics and ETL workflows within this ecosystem, tied directly to the core business.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

Must-have:

  • 7+ years of backend development experience.
  • 3+ years of professional Rust experience.
  • Strong, practical grasp of distributed systems and fault-tolerant software architecture.
  • Familiarity with at least some of: graph theory, type theory, parsers and compilers, and related CS fundamentals. We don't expect mastery of all of these — most strong candidates bring deep expertise in 3–4 out of 5 core areas, with distributed systems being the one we weight most heavily.
  • Real-world DevOps experience.

Nice to have:

  • A background in C/C++ before moving to Rust.
  • Experience with key-value stores or distributed databases — FoundationDB or TiKV are a big plus.
  • Experience with frontend web development.
  • Experience with existing low-/no-code workflow tools (n8n, Prefect, AWS Step Functions).
  • Understanding of WASM runtimes.
  • Previous experience with logistics or process management systems.

LOCATION & SETUP

  • Berlin / Wildau area: hybrid, with 1 day per week in the office.
  • Elsewhere within ~4–5 hours' travel of Berlin: fully remote, no office requirement.
  • Employment: official employment in Germany, or B2B contract elsewhere in Europe.
  • Full-time, ~40 hours/week, with meaningful overlap with CEST hours.

Source: Onhires careers (Ashby)

Similar roles

More roles at Onhires