In this role, you will be responsible for designing and developing Ockam's open source Rust Library, Command Line, and Packages.
Ockam crates implement a collection of messaging and cryptographic protocols that provide end-to-end application layer trust in data. We believe that, in order to have a realistically manageable vulnerability surface, all modern applications need end-to-end guarantees of data integrity and authenticity. The only way to build secure and private applications is to remove unnecessary implicit trust in network boundaries, intermediaries and infrastructure.
This role will require solving challenging problems in areas like library API design, type systems, protocol design, actor model, async execution, abstraction, loose coupling, pluggable modules and more. You will be part of a team of senior engineers who have deep expertise across distributed systems, messaging protocols, network protocols, cryptographic protocols, embedded systems etc.
The Ockam team is passionate about making powerful cryptographic protocols simple and safe for application developers. In this role you will collaborate with this team to deliver safe, secure, stable, well-documented, easy to use, 100% open source Rust libraries and command line.
We just raised a Series A and will be growing the team from 11 to 30 over the next two years. This role involves architecture, interface design, writing code, responsibility for testing, and publishing documentation. Everyone on the Ockam team takes responsibility for their parts from end-to-end, including the creation of long term objectives, issues in GitHub, task management, and summaries of key results.
Expertise
- The Rust language.
- Type Systems, Generics, Futures, Async/Await, Tokio
- Library API and CLI design.
- Building components in complex code bases.
- Modern build systems, CI/CD pipelines and DevOps.
- Consuming and contributing to open source codebases.
- Git and GitHub's workflow.
Experience
- 7+ years of experience building low-level and backend systems.
- Distributed systems, Actor based concurrent systems and Messaging Protocols.
- Provisioning and operating basic cloud services in AWS, Azure or Google Cloud.
- Familiarity with multiple programming languages, including Typescript
Level
- This is a Senior Level (L4/5) role at Ockam.
- For more information about Role Levels at Ockam, <click here for our guide>.
Your Roadmap at Ockam, within 1 month, you'll:
- Learn about how Ockam’s Rust libraries, Ockam Protocols and Ockam Orchestrator work.
- Have 1x1s and pairing sessions with the team members that you’ll be working with closely and get to know your engineering peers.
- If you are new to Rust or have dabbled in it in the past, this month will be a great opportunity for you to spend time doing tutorials and learning the fundamentals of Rust.
- Do a deep dive into the code base and learn more about the inner workings of our Rust libraries.
- Learn about what processes our team currently has in place and how we get work done.
- Tackle your first ticket by committing code to one of our repos.
Within 3 months, you'll:
- Gain a robust understanding of the needs of the Rust library
- Understand the details of how our partner Auth0 would like the TypeScript libraries to work in their environment.
- Design, architect, and deliver your first large feature
- Guide your peers that you work with on areas of improvement on the technical side as well as the process side
- Establish strong async and sync communication rhythms with your peers and management, practicing transparency and visibility in your progress and areas of focus
- Celebrate the major win of having your work being used and valued by our users
- Solicit feedback from your peers, including other engineers and teammates in your product team, and support your team through thoughtful feedback
Within 6 months, you'll:
- Gain a deep understanding of both the Rust and TypeScript libraries and how they work together and when we add a feature, how do we want to architect it best for both libraries
- Elevate the work of the team and become a subject matter expert in an area that interests you
- Continue to contribute to our Open Source libraries and Ockam Command
- Fortify relationships with cross functional team members as well as broaden your connections across the organization
- Coach and mentor team members
Within 12 months, you'll:
- Have significant ownership, making extensive contributions to a large system that enables customers to establish trusted channels between applications.
- Drive initiatives with high-impact on the business and our customers.
- Extensively collaborate with engineering management the executive team to level up the organization and continually improve our product.
Ockam is a growing company. The above is a high-level of what we see this role will comprise of at this point in time. We’re always learning and iterating and we evolve accordingly.
Applying
Not sure you meet 100% of our qualifications? Please apply anyway!
When applying, in addition to your resume, LinkedIn, and GitHub URLs, we’d love to know more about:
1. Your Open Source history - your experience with open source projects and contributions
2. A cover letter with a short blurb about why you would enjoy working in this role and why you’d like to work at Ockam would be great, though not required and will not impact your application.
When we receive your application we’ll get back to you about the next steps.
We are devoted to building a team of people with diverse backgrounds and lifestyles. We hire globally and believe that the unique perspectives and contributions of all our team members is the driver of our success.
Driving equality empowers our team, enables us to innovate, and helps us maintain a more inclusive environment. We don’t discriminate against anyone based on gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, race, military/veteran status, citizenship, pregnancy status, or any other differences.
If we can do anything to provide a better interview, i.e. accommodate a disability, then please let us know.
Ockam is a distributed, remote-first team with a headquarters in San Francisco California.
How to join the Ockam Team
Engineering Levels at Ockam
Ockam is a High Performance Team