Role description
Senior Software Engineer, Backend
HeliusAbout Helius
Helius is building the core infrastructure for Solana - empowering developers to create the next generation of crypto-powered applications. Our mission is to accelerate the development of internet capital markets by making it easier, faster, and more intuitive to build on-chain.
Thousands of teams - from early-stage startups to industry leaders like Coinbase, Phantom, and Jupiter - rely on Helius APIs, webhooks, and indexing tools to power their products. Backed by Haun Ventures, Founders Fund, and Foundation Capital, we’re a small, senior team obsessed with performance, simplicity, and scalability in decentralized systems.
Read our Helius Manifesto to see how we work and what we value.
About the Role
We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join one of our core backend teams - Data Streaming, Historical APIs, or Account Index. These are mission-critical systems that handle real-time Solana state changes, historical data at petabyte scale, and high-throughput API traffic for traders, exchanges, and developers worldwide.
You'll own meaningful parts of these systems end-to-end - not just implementing features but making architectural decisions, improving reliability, and pushing performance further. We're a small team, which means your work has outsized impact and your voice carries weight in technical decisions.
What You'll Do
Design, build, and release novel, performance-sensitive products that transform the developer experience on Solana
Optimize production systems - profiling, benchmarking, and improving latency and throughput
Collaborate with staff engineers and founders on architectural and product decisions
Improve operational excellence - observability, incident response, and making systems easier to run
Mentor junior engineers and raise the technical bar across the team
What You'll Bring
5+ years of backend engineering experience with a track record of shipping production systems at scale
Strong systems-level intuition - you understand what's happening beneath the abstractions
Proficiency in Rust (strongly preferred), C++, or Go
Experience debugging and optimizing latency-sensitive or high-throughput systems
Demonstrated ability to own problems end-to-end with minimal direction
High intensity, high ownership - you hold yourself to an exceptional standard
Prior exposure to engineering cultures that prioritize operational excellence, reliability, and customer impact
Mix of large and small company experience strongly preferred - you've built the habits and can operate at both speeds
Nice to Have
Deep Rust experience in a production, performance-critical environment
Experience with distributed systems, storage engines, or streaming infrastructure
Familiarity with profiling tools - flamegraphs, perf, valgrind
Interest in Solana, blockchain infrastructure, or real-time financial systems
On-call experience and operational ownership of production services
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 across distributed infra and high-throughput backends
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 building infrastructure for internet capital markets