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: AlignerrType: Hourly ContractLocation: RemoteCommitment: 20–40 hours/week What You'll Do Design, build, and optimize high-performance systems in Rust supporting AI data pipelines and evaluation workflowsDevelop full-stack tooling and backend services for large-scale data annotation, validation, and quality controlImprove reliability, performance, and safety across existing Rust codebasesCollaborate with data, research, and engineering teams to support model training and evaluation workflowsIdentify bottlenecks and edge cases in data and system behavior, and implement scalable, production-ready fixesLead synchronous system design reviews and drive key architectural decisions Who You Are Native or fluent English speaker with clear written and verbal communication skills5+ years of professional experience writing production Rust, with a strong focus on system architecture and API designDeep expertise in FFI (Foreign Function Interface) and unsafe Rust boundaries to optimize cross-language interactionsAdvanced command of asynchronous runtimes and thread safety in complex, multi-threaded environmentsAble to lead technical reviews and communicate design tradeoffs clearly to cross-functional teamsAvailable to commit 20–40 hours per week on a consistent basis Nice to Have Prior experience with data annotation, data quality, or evaluation systemsFamiliarity with AI/ML workflows, model training, or benchmarking pipelinesExperience building distributed systems or developer toolingBackground working with or alongside AI research teams Why Join Us Work directly on production systems and high-impact infrastructure for leading AI labsTackle genuinely hard Rust engineering challenges — not toy projectsFully remote and flexible — work on a schedule that fits your lifeFreelance autonomy combined with meaningful, technically rich workCollaborate with world-class data, research, and engineering teams shaping the future of AIPotential for ongoing work and contract extension as new projects launch