Rust Backend Engineer – Trading Systems (London, Onsite) Location: London, UK (Onsite) Type: Full-time | Permanent Salary: Competitive Equity About the Client My client is an early-stage, well-funded startup on a mission to redefine how global markets trade. Backed by top-tier investors, we’re building a high-performance, next-gen trading platform from the ground up – one that challenges legacy exchanges in both speed and transparency. With a founding team of experienced technologists and traders, we’re entering our next phase of growth and looking for engineers who thrive in zero-to-one environments. The Role As a Rust Backend Engineer, you’ll be one of the first technical hires shaping the system architecture and core infrastructure of our trading engine and exchange backend. You’ll design and build highly performant distributed systems that power real-time order execution, pricing, and settlement. This isn’t just a backend job — it’s a deep-systems engineering role where performance, fault-tolerance, and reliability are non-negotiable. What You’ll Be Doing Designing and building distributed backend systems in Rust that are robust, scalable, and latency-optimized Developing core components of the trading engine, order books, pricing services, and APIs Ensuring systems meet strict performance and uptime requirements Contributing to infrastructure decisions around CI/CD, observability, and deployment Working closely with founding engineers, quant/dev teams, and product leadership to shape roadmap and technical direction Participating in code reviews, architecture discussions, and performance tuning Requirements 5 years building high-performance backend systems (Rust, Go, C++, etc.) Strong Rust experience in production environments (or demonstrated fluency and commitment to using it full-time) Prior experience working on trading systems, exchanges, or other real-time financial platforms (must-have) Deep understanding of distributed systems, concurrency, fault-tolerance, and performance optimization Experience building event-driven architectures, microservices, or pub/sub systems Comfortable working in fast-paced, high-stakes environments with a bias for ownership and delivery Based in London or willing to relocate (this is an onsite role) Bonus Points Experience with WebSocket APIs, FIX, or other trading communication protocols Exposure to low-latency data pipelines or market data systems Knowledge of financial markets, asset classes, or crypto trading Experience in early-stage startups or greenfield projects Why Join? Build from scratch: No legacy baggage, real technical ownership Work with a small, elite team of engineers and traders Equity upside in a company backed by top investors and already near 9-figure valuation Shape a product that could define the future of market infrastructure Flat structure, fast decisions, and real impact If you're a systems-minded engineer who wants to build core infrastructure for the next generation of trading, we want to hear from you. Apply now or reach out directly to chat.