Lead Systems Engineer (Rust) — AI Platform
About The Role
What if your deep expertise in Rust could directly shape the infrastructure powering the next generation of AI? We're looking for a senior Rust engineer to build, optimize, and lead the systems that make cutting-edge AI research and production workflows possible — working alongside world-class teams at leading AI labs.
This is a fully remote contract role with flexible commitment. You'll be embedded in real production environments, solving hard problems at the intersection of systems engineering and AI infrastructure.
- Organization: Alignerr
- Type: Hourly Contract
- Location: Remote
- Commitment: 20–40 hours/week
What You'll Do
- Design, build, and optimize high-performance systems in Rust that power AI data pipelines and evaluation workflows at scale
- Develop full-stack tooling and backend services for large-scale data annotation, validation, and quality control
- Own and improve reliability, performance, and safety across existing Rust codebases
- Identify bottlenecks, edge cases, and failure modes in complex systems — then implement scalable, elegant fixes
- Collaborate closely with data, research, and engineering teams to accelerate model training and evaluation
- Lead synchronous system design reviews and drive architectural decisions with clarity and confidence
Who You Are
- Native or fluent English speaker with strong written and verbal communication skills
- 5+ years of professional experience writing production-grade Rust, with a focus on system architecture and API design
- Deep expertise in FFI (Foreign Function Interface) and unsafe Rust, with a strong understanding of how to manage boundaries between Rust and other languages safely
- Advanced command of asynchronous runtimes and multi-threaded environments — you understand concurrency deeply and write code that proves it
- Confident leading system design reviews and articulating complex technical tradeoffs to cross-functional teams
- Able to commit 20–40 hours per week with reliability and professionalism
Nice to Have
- Prior experience with data annotation, data quality pipelines, or evaluation systems
- Familiarity with AI/ML workflows, model training, or benchmarking infrastructure
- Experience building or maintaining distributed systems or developer tooling
- Exposure to working with research teams or in fast-moving AI environments
Why Join Us
- Work on real, high-impact production systems alongside some of the best AI research teams in the world
- Fully remote and flexible — structure your work around your life, not the other way around
- Freelance autonomy with the depth and significance of meaningful engineering work
- Get direct exposure to next-generation AI infrastructure at the frontier of the field
- Potential for ongoing engagement and expanded scope as new projects launch
