Software Engineer (Rust Backend)

Summary We are looking for a talented Rust engineer to help shape the future of Midnight's products and technology. Midnight is a regulatory-friendly, data-protection blockchain that safeguards sensitive commercial and personal data, protecting fundamental freedoms of association, commerce, and expression for developers, companies, and individuals. Your primary focus will be the Midnight Indexer — the Rust service that streams blockchain data from Midnight nodes to wallets and end-user applications through a high-performance GraphQL API. It ingests block history, processes it, stores it efficiently across PostgreSQL (cloud) and SQLite (standalone), and serves real-time subscriptions, with the wallet integration and privacy guarantees that sit at the heart of Midnight. The Indexer will be your home base, but we want someone whose skills travel. As you grow into the stack, you will have the opportunity to contribute to adjacent components such as the Node (our Substrate-based blockchain node) and the Ledger (transaction structure, state, and zero-knowledge proofs). We value breadth and curiosity across the platform as much as depth in any single component. Requirements Duties Design, build, and operate the Indexer's components in Rust — the chain indexer, the wallet indexer, the SPO indexer (Cardano partner-chain data), and the GraphQL API — keeping the architecture modular and maintainableBuild and maintain the data pipeline that fetches blocks and transactions from the Midnight node via subxt, handling finalised-block tracking, gap backfilling, and continuous real-time indexingDesign efficient schemas and queries across PostgreSQL (cloud) and SQLite (standalone), and keep latency and throughput healthy as the chain growsEvolve the GraphQL API — queries, mutations, and real-time subscriptions over WebSockets — with care for the wallet model: secure sessions and correct handling of shielded dataWrite and maintain unit, integration, and end-to-end tests; treat reliability and correctness as first-class concernsOwn operational quality for the service: observability, containerised deployment (Docker), and incident responseParticipate in code reviews and technical design discussions, and collaborate closely with the node, ledger, wallet, and security teams — contributing to those components as you ramp upKeep current with developments in Rust and blockchain technology, and apply them to improve the platform Key Competencies Core Requirements (the Indexer) Strong, idiomatic Rust — including async/await (tokio) and a solid grasp of concurrencyBackend / data-systems experience — you have built and operated high-performance services or data pipelines in productionDatabases — practical experience with PostgreSQL and/or SQLite: schema design, query optimisation, and reasoning about performanceAPI design — designing and evolving service APIs; GraphQL experience is a big plusComputer-science fundamentals — sound on data structures, algorithms, and concurrencyEngineering discipline — comfortable with rigorous testing, code review, and clear technical communicationRemote collaboration — effective working asynchronously across time zones Valued — enables you to contribute across the stack These are not hard requirements. A strong async-Rust engineer can ramp on the blockchain specifics; the items below let you reach beyond the Indexer sooner. Substrate / Polkadot ecosystem — especially subxt, plus familiarity with pallets and runtime developmentBlockchain core concepts — consensus mechanisms, cryptography, and transaction/state modelsApplied cryptography or zero-knowledge — interest in the Ledger's transaction structure, state, and proving systemsWASM — compiling Rust to WebAssemblyCardano / partner chains — Midnight runs as a Cardano partner chain, so this context is useful Education / Experience At least 3 years of experience in software development, with at least 2 years in the Rust programming languageStrong understanding of computer science fundamentals, including algorithms and data structuresExperience in developing and maintaining high-performance systems in RustExperience with blockchain technology is a plusExperience in remote work and collaboration across different time zonesExperience working in scale-ups