Technical Context & Problem Space
Engineer high-IOPS local NVMe storage daemons, query routing proxies, and vector indexing extensions in Rust for petabyte-scale relational clusters.
PlanetScale Metal attaches bare-metal local NVMe drives to multi-region database pods, using Rust control agents and custom network proxies to perform zero-downtime shard migrations and sub-millisecond failover. Every microsecond saved on the hot path translates directly into lower hardware footprint.
Key Engineering Deliverables
- Optimize direct NVMe block I/O, build low-latency connection admission controllers in Rust, and instrument kernel block-layer latency via eBPF.
- Harden distributed state machines and I/O pipelines written in io_uring, Tokio, Tonic, Prost against network partitions and disk faults.
- Build deterministic benchmarks and chaos tests that catch regressions before production rollout.
Candidate Profile & Compensation
- 3+ years writing performance-critical systems software in Rust (with production exposure to io_uring and Tokio).
- Solid grasp of virtual memory, page caches, thread-per-core scheduling, or modern hardware interconnects.
- Annual base band: $195k - $265k USD (US / Remote), paired with equity and async-first remote workflows.
