(Senior) Principal Backend Engineer (Go/Golang/Rust)

Description:

• Focuses on leading the technical design and implementation of specific, complex projects or features within the backend/platform using Rust/Go/Golang(e.g., a new high-speed pattern matching engine, a memory-safe policy enforcement module).
• Provides technical guidance and mentorship to other backend engineers.
• Able to takes a broader, more strategic view. Responsible for the overall technical architecture and long-term vision for major parts of the backend platform, especially components where Rust/go/Golang's performance and safety are paramount (e.g.,core data plane processing elements, critical control plane services).
• Influences technology choices across multiple projects and teams.
• Mentors and guides Principal Engineers and other senior engineers on complex systems programming, concurrency, and network security challenges using Rust/Go/Golang.

Key Responsibilities:

Technical Leadership:

• Provide technical leadership and guidance to the Rust engineering efforts focused on the product.
• Define and champion best practices for Rust development, specifically for high-performance, concurrent, memory-safe, and secure network security applications.
• Lead the design and architecture of complex backend systems and platform components for the product, leveraging Rust for performance-critical and security-sensitive modules.
• Evaluate and select appropriate Rust crates, tools, and design patterns for building a world-class platform backend.
• Stay up-to-date on the latest Rust/Go/Golang language features, ecosystem developments, networking trends, and advancements in the platform and cybersecurity.
• Define and maintain the overall architecture for key platform backend systems, with a strong emphasis on Rust/Go/Golang's strengths in performance, safety, and concurrency.

Hands-on Development:

• Write high-quality, maintainable, memory-safe, and well-tested Rust/Go/Golang code for core platform functionality (e.g., efficient packet parsing and inspection, high-speed threat signature matching, security policy enforcement logic, low-latency logging).
• Contribute to all stages of the software development lifecycle, from design and prototyping to deployment and operational excellence.
• Prototype new features, algorithms, and data structures in Rust/Go/Golang for network traffic analysis and threat prevention.

Code Review and Mentorship:

• Conduct rigorous code reviews to ensure code quality, adherence to Rust/Go/Golang best practices (including safety and concurrency patterns), performance, and security.
• Mentor and coach other backend engineers, helping them grow their technical skills, particularly in Rust/Go/Golang, systems programming, and network security concepts.

Performance, Scalability & Reliability Optimization:

• Identify and address performance bottlenecks in platform backend systems using Rust/Go/Golang's capabilities to achieve line-rate processing goals and low latency.
• Design and implement solutions that scale to handle massive volumes of network traffic and large, complex security policy sets, leveraging Rust/Go/Golang's efficiency.
• Ensure the high availability and resilience of the backend platform, benefiting from Rust/Go/Golang's reliability features.

Security:

• Leverage Rust/Go/Golang's memory safety features to build inherently more secure

systems.

• Implement secure coding practices to protect system integrity, sensitive data, and prevent vulnerabilities within the backend infrastructure.
• Work closely with the security research and operations teams to translate threat intelligence into effective backend detection and prevention mechanisms written in Rust/Go/Golang.

Collaboration:

• Work closely with product managers, security researchers, and network engineers to define requirements and translate them into robust Rust/Go/Golang-based backend solutions for the platform.
• Communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders regarding complex technical designs and trade-offs.
• Collaborate with other Principal Engineers and technical leaders across different areas (e.g., frontend, data science, infrastructure).

Problem Solving:

• Troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues in distributed, high-performance backend systems, often requiring deep understanding of Rust/Go/Golang's internals, networking protocols, and system-level behavior.

Qualifications:

Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. Master's degree preferred.

Experience:

• Minimum of 10+ years of software engineering experience, with extensive experience in Rust and a proven track record of technical leadership in building high-performance systems-level software, network applications, or security products using Rust.
• Deep understanding of Rust/Go/Golang's ownership, borrowing, lifetimes, traits, and concurrency primitives (e.g., async/await, Tokio/async-std).
• Proven experience building high-performance, memory-safe, and concurrent systems.
• Strong experience with network programming in Rust/Go/Golang (e.g., working with TCP/IP, UDP at a low level, potentially using crates like pnet, tokio-tungstenite, etc.).
• Experience with databases (SQL and NoSQL) and data modeling, and integrating them with Rust applications.
• Experience with containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes) for Rust/Go/Golang services.

Essential:

• Strong understanding of networking fundamentals (TCP/IP stack, routing, switching, firewalls, VPNs).
• Highly Desirable: Experience with Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), Intrusion. Detection/Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS), security policy engines, or other network security technologies, ideally with some exposure to implementing these in Rust or C/C++.
• Highly Desirable: Experience designing and developing components for control plane and/or data plane of networking or security devices.
• Experience with testing frameworks and methodologies in Rust (e.g., cargo test, property-based testing, integration testing).
• Familiarity with Rust's build system (cargo) and ecosystem (crates.io).
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices for Rust applications.
• Experience working in an Agile environment.
• Experience working in Vietnam or Southeast Asia is a plus.

Skills:

• Exceptional technical skills in Rust development, specifically for systems programming, networking, and high-performance applications.
• Strong understanding of memory safety paradigms and how Rust enforces them.
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and debugging abilities, especially in complex, concurrent systems.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills.
• Proven ability to lead, mentor, and inspire other engineers on challenging technical problems with Rust.
• Passion for building high-quality, scalable, and highly secure systems, particularly in the cybersecurity domain using modern, safe languages.
• Ability to think abstractly and deal with ambiguous/undefined problems.
• Fluency in English.