Lead Systems Engineer (Rust) - AI Platform
Lead Systems Engineer (Rust) — AI Platform About The Role What if your Rust expertise could directly shape the infrastructure powering the world's most advanced AI systems? We're looking for a Senior Rust Full-Stack Engineer to build high-performance data pipelines, annotation tooling, and evaluation infrastructure for leading AI labs — working on systems that matter at scale. This is a fully remote, flexible contract role for engineers who know Rust deeply and want to apply it to genuinely hard, high-impact problems at the frontier of AI development. Organization: Alignerr Type: Hourly Contract Location: Remote Commitment: 20–40 hours/week
What You'll Do
Design, build, and optimize high-performance systems in Rust supporting AI data pipelines and evaluation workflows Develop full-stack tooling and backend services for large-scale data annotation, validation, and quality control Improve reliability, performance, and safety across existing Rust codebases Collaborate with data, research, and engineering teams to support model training and evaluation workflows Identify bottlenecks and edge cases in data and system behavior, and implement scalable, production-ready fixes Lead synchronous system design reviews and drive key architectural decisions Who You Are Native or fluent English speaker with clear written and verbal communication skills 5+ years of professional experience writing production Rust, with a strong focus on system architecture and API design Deep expertise in FFI (Foreign Function Interface) and unsafe Rust boundaries to optimize cross-language interactions Advanced command of asynchronous runtimes and thread safety in complex, multi-threaded environments Able to lead technical reviews and communicate design tradeoffs clearly to cross-functional teams Available to commit 20–40 hours per week on a consistent basis
Nice to Have
Prior experience with data annotation, data quality, or evaluation systems Familiarity with AI/ML workflows, model training, or benchmarking pipelines Experience building distributed systems or developer tooling Background working with or alongside AI research teams
Why Join Us
Work directly on production systems and high-impact infrastructure for leading AI labs Tackle genuinely hard Rust engineering challenges — not toy projects Fully remote and flexible — work on a schedule that fits your life Freelance autonomy combined with meaningful, technically rich work Collaborate with world-class data, research, and engineering teams shaping the future of AI Potential for ongoing work and contract extension as new projects launch