Principal Rust Engineer

About Ambient: Ambient is an innovative cryptocurrency network built on a Proof of Work (PoW) model that leverages machine intelligence. We incentivize nodes to perform inference, fine-tuning, and pre-training on a single large language model (LLM) with over 600 billion parameters. Ambient replaces Bitcoin by providing a decentralized and open-source alternative where the economy is denominated in machine intelligence.

Responsibilities:
- Lead the design and development of high-performance, distributed systems written in Rust, focusing on network protocols, consensus mechanisms, and data processing
- Optimize system performance to handle massive scale and ensure reliability in a decentralized environment
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including AI researchers and product managers, to integrate machine learning capabilities into the network
- Mentor junior engineers and contribute to code reviews, ensuring adherence to best practices and architectural standards
- Design and implement secure and efficient systems that can operate in a decentralized network
- Drive architectural decisions for high-impact projects, ensuring scalability and reliability

Requirements:
- Proven experience leading complex engineering efforts focused on distributed systems and network protocols
- Exceptional collaboration and communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to align stakeholders and lead cross-functional teams
- A track record of contributing to long-term technical roadmaps and making thoughtful system-level tradeoffs
- At least 8+ years of coding experience in Rust, Java, or similar, with strong expertise in writing concurrent and distributed code
- Extensive experience designing and building distributed systems, leveraging concurrency primitives, and optimizing network performance
- Deep expertise in traffic and networking systems, with familiarity across adjacent infrastructure domains
- Hands-on experience with cloud providers such as AWS, GCP, or Azure, and the ability to optimize cost, performance, and scalability

Compensation: The estimated pay range for this role is $160,000 - $220,000. Additionally, this role is eligible to participate in Ambient's equity plan.