Lead Rust Engineer

Key responsibilities

• Set technical direction, priorities and engineering standards.
• Own architecture and API design decisions for the new service layer and the migration path from legacy systems.
• Design, build and maintain backend services and APIs, with Rust as the primary language.
• Develop and extend the Rust service layer that sits at the core of the new platform.
• Migrate existing clients, written in C# and Ruby, from the current API surface to the new one with minimal disruption.
• Work in the existing Ruby codebase where needed while the platform moves to the new architecture.
• Contribute to API design, versioning and contracts so consumers can adopt new endpoints cleanly.
• Support data synchronization work through delivery, helping get it across the finish line.
• Write well-tested, observable, production-ready code and set the bar for code quality through reviews.
• Partner closely with client engineering leads and the wider Transcenda team.

Must have

• 8+ years of backend engineering experience building services and APIs in production, ideally 2+ years in a tech lead role.
• Hands-on commercial experience with Rust, including async services (for example Tokio, Axum or Actix).
• Working knowledge of Ruby, enough to read, maintain and safely change an existing Ruby codebase (using code assistants).
• Strong API design skills: REST and/or gRPC, versioning, backward compatibility and client migration.
• Solid grounding in relational databases, SQL and service-to-service integration.
• Experience with testing, CI/CD and observability for backend services.
• Proven ability to ramp up quickly on unfamiliar codebases and languages, and to bring a team along with you.
• Experience driving agentic coding practices across a team: setting guidelines, defining review standards for AI-generated code, and helping engineers use these tools effectively and safely.
• Clear written and spoken English and comfort working directly with client engineering leads.