The Engineering Lead (Rust) at Keyrock is a senior technical leadership role responsible for driving the delivery and technical excellence of engineering initiatives within the Service Market Making Business Unit. This hybrid role combines hands-on coding in Rust with architectural leadership, team mentorship, and cross-functional collaboration to build scalable, low-latency trading systems in the cryptocurrency space.
What You'll Do
- Drive delivery and alignment by partnering with the Head of Engineering to own entire work-streams, ensuring architecture and engineering decisions align with immediate requirements and business strategy
- Balance code and leadership by contributing directly through coding, while also focusing on architecture design, peer reviews, and cross-functional communication
- Mentor and elevate engineers by providing structured feedback through design and code reviews, supporting skill development, and empowering junior and mid-level engineers to take ownership
- Provide technical leadership by guiding system design, ensuring scalability and resilience, and optimizing performance across applications and infrastructure
- Maintain engineering standards by upholding best practices, enforcing coding guidelines, and partnering with QA to embed automation and validation in the delivery pipeline
- Manage codebase health by managing technical debt, leading refactoring initiatives, and ensuring long-term maintainability and operational excellence
- Engage in cross-functional collaboration by working closely with product managers, designers, and QA engineers to define scope, refine requirements, and plan delivery transparently and predictably
- Perform risk management by anticipating technical risks, dependencies, and trade-offs early, and proposing mitigations to safeguard delivery timelines
- Act as the technical point of accountability for the Service Market Making Business Unit
- Balance strategic thinking with pragmatic delivery, ensuring systems are built to last while meeting immediate needs
- Champion collaboration across teams, ensuring alignment between product, design, QA, and engineering
- Inspire and develop engineers through mentorship, coaching, and technical guidance, fostering growth and autonomy within the team
What We're Looking For
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience
- 5+ years in a Technical Leadership position guiding teams, shaping architecture, and driving delivery of complex projects
- Demonstrated expertise in architecting and maintaining high-concurrency, low-latency trading systems at scale
- Advanced proficiency in Rust
- Deep experience with data-intensive architectures and real-time data pipelines
- Proven track record deploying, optimising and operating AWS environments for ultra-low-latency workloads
- Hands-on experience containerising applications and managing Kubernetes clusters in production
- Familiarity with GitOps workflows to automate infrastructure provisioning, configuration and deployments
- Solid command of software engineering best practices, including Agile methodologies, DevOps principles and end-to-end CI/CD pipelines
- Knowledge of DevSecFinOps principles to embed security, compliance and cost-governance throughout the delivery lifecycle
- Demonstrated leadership of engineering teams, with a commitment to fostering collaboration, mentorship and continuous professional growth
- Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills, able to partner effectively with Product, Architecture, Quantitative Research and Operations
- Strong analytical and problem-solving mindset, with a passion for building scalable, reliable and secure systems
- Deep domain knowledge of finance and trading, particularly within the cryptocurrency sector
Nice to Have
- Working knowledge of Node.js (JavaScript/TypeScript) and Python is an advantage
- Experience in fast-paced, dynamic financial or fintech environments is highly desirable
Technical Stack
Rust, Node.js, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, AWS, Kubernetes, GitOps, CI/CD, DevOps, DevSecFinOps, Agile methodologies, real-time data pipelines, containerisation
Team & Environment
Keyrock has over 180 team members globally in a remote-first structure with hubs in London, Brussels, and Singapore. The team is composed of individuals from 42 nationalities, including DeFi natives and PhDs, and reports to the Head of Engineering. The culture emphasizes ownership, initiative, operational diligence, curiosity, and collaboration within a fully remote global team. Hiring, rewarding, and promoting are entirely based on merit and performance.
Benefits & Compensation
- A competitive salary package
- Various benefits depending on the method of engagement (employee or freelancer)
- Autonomy in time management thanks to flexible working hours
- Opportunity to work remotely
- The freedom to create your own entrepreneurial experience by being part of a team in search of excellence
- Inclusive, diverse and non-discriminating work environment
- Hiring, rewarding and promoting entirely based on merit and performance
- Regular online and offline hangouts to keep the team connected
Work Mode
Local-country engagement in UK and Europe, with remote and flexible work options available.
We welcome employees of all backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, creed and sexual orientation. We hire, reward and promote entirely based on merit and performance. Due to the nature of our business and external requirements, we perform background checks on all potential employees, passing which is a prerequisite to join Keyrock.
