Principal Rust Engineer – Language Runtime

We are Progress (Nasdaq: PRGS) - the trusted provider of software that enables our customers to develop, deploy and manage responsible, AI-powered applications and experience with agility and ease.

We’re proud to have a diverse, global team where we value the individual and enrich our culture by considering varied perspectives because we believe people power progress. Join us as a Principal Rust Engineer and help us do what we do best: propelling business forward.  Know more about us.

We are building a production language runtime in Rust — compiler, virtual machine, wire protocol client, and application server. You will join as a long-term technical owner of this system, working alongside experienced platform architects and a second FTE Rust engineer.

In this role, you will

Runtime & VM

Implement and optimize an async register-based virtual machine with cooperative scheduling and built-in function dispatch.

Translate language semantics from a reference C implementation into idiomatic, correct Rust.

Compiler

Extend a multi-stage compiler pipeline (lexer, parser, AST, IR, codegen).

Deliver new language features end-to-end with conformance and property-based tests.

Protocol & Data Layer

Extend a binary wire protocol implementation reverse-engineered from C source.

Own TLS, authentication, and connection pooling.

Async & Networking

Maintain a Tokio-based async runtime handling thousands of concurrent requests with shared state and admission control.

Contribute to HTTP, WebSocket, and gRPC server layers.

Engineering & Build

Manage a large multi-crate Cargo workspace — dependency hygiene, CI performance, and release engineering.

Team Enablement

Mentor senior engineers (20+ years platform experience) adopting Rust — teaching-oriented code reviews, pair programming, and progressive ownership handoff.

Document architecture decisions and maintain design docs as first-class deliverables.

Your background

• Overall 10+ years of Software Engineering Experience
• 5+ years production Rust in systems software (runtimes, compilers, databases, or networking).
• Compiler or language runtime experience — at least one of: parser, AST/IR, bytecode compiler, VM, or interpreter.
• Async Rust at scale — Tokio, shared-state concurrency, cancellation safety.
• Large multi-crate workspace fluency.
• Ability to read large C codebases and derive correct Rust implementations.
• Mentorship mindset — patience, clear communication, progressive handoff.
• Long-term ownership orientation — multi-year commitment.
• Excellent written and verbal English.
• CS degree or equivalent (data structures, algorithms, OS, compilers)

Additionally, it would be beneficial if you have

• VM design — opcode dispatch, cooperative scheduling, register allocation.
• Binary protocol reverse-engineering and zero-copy parsing.
• Property-based testing (proptest, quickcheck).
• Concurrent data structures — DashMap, Moka, lock-free patterns.
• Axum / Tower / WebSocket server experience.
• Developer tooling protocols (LSP, DAP).
• Observability — tracing, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus.
• Database connectivity — pooling, transactions, schema resolution.
• Experience onboarding engineering teams into Rust.
• AI-assisted development tools (Copilot, Claude).
• If this sounds like you and fits your experience and career goals, we’d be happy to chat. What we offer in return is the opportunity to experience a great company culture with wonderful colleagues to learn from and collaborate with, and also to enjoy:

Compensation

Competitive remuneration package

Employee Stock Purchase Plan Enrolment

• Vacation, Family, and Health
• 30 days of earned leave
• An extra day off for your birthday
• Various other leaves like marriage leave, casual leave, maternity leave, and paternity leave
• Premium Group Medical Insurance for employees and five dependents, personal accident insurance coverage, and life insurance coverage
• Professional development reimbursement
• Interest subsidy on loans - either vehicle or personal loans.
• Apply now!

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